IC 004 - Water Never Sleeps

[Marullus]

With nothing else discovered here, Gars is ready to move on. If nobody objects he leads the way north.

[Rex]

Ciarra

Ciarra follows along, keeping the lantern hooded until needed.

[The_Wanderer]

Sleepy tags along silently at the back of the march order, bow at the ready.

[hedonismbot]

Daravek

Daravek assumes his place in the formation, the newly acquired book nestled in his pack.

[sulldawga]

The rest of the Ruin is a bit of a disappointment. North of the library is a kitchen. It is as ancient and unused as all of the other rooms. It's clear that the necromancer has not been using it at all. A search of the premises finds nothing of interest. Anything of value has either been pilfered or destroyed/damaged beyond repair.

There is another exit from the kitchen to the SW that leads to the same room as the west exit from the library. It was formerly a bedroom. The bed was once large and magnificent; it is now in splinters with any sheets or blankets long rotted away. A sturdy desk has been looted, its fine oak drawers cruelly pried free with blades and discarded upon the floor. Leather straps secured to the underside of the desk hint at a hidden dagger or wand, now long departed. Even the chair that presumably accompanied the desk has been taken away.

To the south is the final room in this wing of the Ruin. Once a laboratory, now it serves only as a repository of broken bottles and vials. Here, a dried ink vial. There, a smashed oil lantern. Your boots all grind the shards on the floor into finer glass dust with every step.

Amazingly, the only intact item of significance in the room is a 12' long stuffed alligator secured to the ceiling. No doubt the strong metal chains securing it to the ceiling are the only reason it survived the room's sacking... well, that and its naturally thick hide, well preserved. Much to the warlocks' chagrin, there is a large chalkboard which appears to have had a number of magical scribblings upon it at one time. Alas, all of the writing has been erased or smeared beyond recognition.

Unless there is a room you'd like to return to, you have visited all the locations on this floor. What's next?

[Rex]

Ciarra

"Should we cut up the alligator in case there is anything hidden in it? I would hide something in it."

[Marullus]

Gars blinks in surprise. "I wouldn't have thought of that! Necromancers and healers pondering creative cadaver use..."

After Ciarra vivisects the croc, Gars adds, "I want to return to check the library for secret doors, the magic circle room with an eye for antecedents that allude to where these Necromancers wanted to travel to, then I think we get the picks and prybars to lift the tiles and go through the pit floor at the drain hole. We know the lower level exists and is of interest..."

[The_Wanderer]

Gars blinks in surprise. "I wouldn't have thought of that! Necromancers and healers pondering creative cadaver use..."

After Ciarra vivisects the croc, Gars adds, "I want to return to check the library for secret doors, the magic circle room with an eye for antecedents that allude to where these Necromancers wanted to travel to, then I think we get the picks and prybars to lift the tiles and go through the pit floor at the drain hole. We know the lower level exists and is of interest..."

Sleepy
"I'm all for a bit of light demolition but how do we know there is a lower level?"

[hedonismbot]

Daravek

"If we can open up even a small hole below the drain, Kledo may be able to take a look. I'm concerned that what we'll find is just a big scabrous mound in a tank."

[sulldawga]

The stuffed alligator proves a hardy foe but eventually yields to the party's will. It is empty.

Gars does not have any particular skill in searching but perhaps his time spent in libraries has given him an instinctual feel for where a mage might hide something, and he comes across a hidden cache behind a stone in the wall. It contains a book. Not a spellbook but a treatise on the different elemental planes. Maybe useful for spell research?

No Notice skill and no Wisdom bonus? Who cares? Success!

Returning to the teleportation circle room, Gars takes a close look at the circle and other materials in the room but can't find anything useful. He presumes that any components are consumed by the ritual. Returning to where the party has hid its newfound treasure, he notes that none of the coins are from Caral. They are all from Ghandar. More tellingly, they appear to be an assortment of coins from different mints within the kingdom. He posits the coins may be the way to "fine tune" the destination when leaving this site and teleporting west.

I had nothing planned here so I made the check DC 10 but Gars nailed it again!

The party then exits the Ruin to retrieve the picks and shovels stored on the sturdy back of Fred the mule. You notice the sun is quite low in the sky and come to the sudden realization that it's been a long day. Between the travel here, time spent by Ciarra butchering the giant boar, crossing the river, searching the Ruin, fighting the giant snake and stripping it of scales, and then searching the Ruin some more, you've packed a lot of action into a short period of time.

Time to camp for the night. Where would you like to do it?

[The_Wanderer]

Which hex on the map are we in?

[Marullus]

Sleepy
"I'm all for a bit of light demolition but how do we know there is a lower level?"

"We suspect that if there's a drain, and a reason to collect blood to power the teleporter, then there's a place the blood drains to and collects. So, some accessible lower chamber, at least. But then we found the necromancer who was using his undead minions - sorry Daravek - to dig out a staircase going down. That confirms that there's not only a lower level, but that the necromancer was quite invested in re-opening the access. It would take us weeks to dig out the stairwell, but prying up the tiles at the drain, particularly enough for a monkey... Daravek, where the heck are you going to get a monkey?"

Gars stands on the edge of the river and ponders.

"The problem, of course, is still the river. It is a pain in the arse to cross, but the site remains on this side and our mules on the other. While I did bring the digging gear over, I am not keen on leaving the mules alone for night predation. I also am not willing to cross the river twice needlessly given the dousing that Lavin already took. Do we leave the mules to browse the other shore until tomorrow? Or do I or another go over and lead them to a ford where we can get them to this side?"

"...if we leave them over there, we should camp here on this bank to watch over them. Sleepy and Daravek have bows, at least. If we bring them across, we can all stay inside. Perhaps even use those workmen's beds."

[Enoch]

Lavin ponders the situation for a long while before speaking. "If...if the mules are likely to die on the far bank anyway, we could use one of them to fuel the circle."

She looks hopefully at Gars and makes a finger-waggling gesture. "Or maybe you could magic up a monkey or something?"

[Marullus]

Gars scoffs. "What good would that do? We can't just magic up monkeys."

[sulldawga]

Which hex on the map are we in?

You are in the Blackwater Swamp region. You're on the west bank of a river whose name you haven't yet learned. You are approximately 5-6 miles SW of Fort Illumination.

Song Lake is only a few more miles further to the SW. The Falkenhorn is perhaps 10 miles to the south. Blackwater Swamp itself is perhaps 10 miles to the NNW.

[The_Wanderer]

You are in the Blackwater Swamp region. You're on the west bank of a river whose name you haven't yet learned. You are approximately 5-6 miles SW of Fort Illumination...

This river is not on the map, right?

[sulldawga]

This river is not on the map, right?

Correct, that river is not on the large hex map.

[Rex]

Ciarra

"We need to decide what we are going to do since we can't find a way to a lower level if it even exists."

[Marullus]

Gars offers, "I suggest that -

• We camp here at this riverside, with Daravek and Sleepy splitting the watch to cover the mules on the far back with their bowshot, Ciarra or I risking the log to have someone on their side to keep them from wandering and for further protection. Lavin already got dunked once and now she's covered in heavy steel, so let's keep her here.
• We already have the tools on this side, so in the morning, we go see if we can dig through the drain on the floor of the pit, opening first a hole large enough for the little magic monkey to investigate.
• Either way, tomorrow explore downstream until we find a river ford so we can get the mules on this side with us.
• If we access the lower level, we explore it. If not, we take all this silver back to town... through the ford again."

[Rex]

Ciarra

"sounds like a good plan to me."