Seeking Scales
Seeking Scales
Hook:
After months of dungeons, the players have decided they're ready for a dragon. I wonder how a bunch of level three characters will fare?
036 - 250723 - Seeking Scales
Date:
446 PC, Brightwane 33
Waning Crescent Moon
Players:
Loot:
3 dozen Crystal masks, each depicting a different emotion
1 of which is magic and programmed with a vision of a person, likely Lyrent Vael
Edge of burnt note "safe house near Promiance Gate"
15 bottles of good wine [ 10 Draylor ]
Scrying bowl, cracked but still active
Journal, warded, probably Lyrent Vael's
Scrolls: Dream, Detect Thoughts, Sending [Dev]
Library of Arcane books with a focus on psionics
After Actions:
Ragnum
When next I see Raven and we are all together in the mess tent…
Hey Raven, thanks for letting us examine that scale you found in the vault. It’s in the scholar's tent when you want it back. While we were examining it on Bright wane 33, I found this old letter hidden in the back of the frame:
In the event this note has been unsealed, assume the living memory of Vault VTC-713's construction has been lost within the institution. The enclosed parchment contains the full text of the original custodial accord, along with specific instructions for fulfilling the Imperial Trust's obligations under the Contingency Clause. Retrieve the scale and proceed with discretion. Do not speak of the vault's contents aloud. Seek out Lyrent Vael or another representative of the Order of the Lucent Thought for orientation. Vael's townhouse is located just off the Ridgewalk, near the old skyglass rail. If the route beyond Prominence Gate remains unstable I recommend you use the echo arch located in the basement or similar means of transportation. Furthermore, do not believe any rumors about the Order. Proceed with calm judgment and discretion and all will be well. Filed Duskveil 43, Year 1202 LCC — A.B.And when I say this letter is old, I mean it is old…1202 LCC dates back to late Tharic era 4, when the empire was at its height of magical experimentation; that 200 years before the collapse, so around 700 years ago. Based on this note Dev, Draylor Garth, and I decided to use the note as an excuse to get out of camp—I’m sure you can appreciate the sentiment these days—and check out this Larent Vael’s house.
After getting waylaid by some hippogriffs, and finding a newsstand that had been repurposed to leave notes--including some poetry that makes it sound like things went really bad in the city during the collapse--we found Vael’s townhouse.
Draylor was still shifted in a bear from our fight with the hippogriffs so he just busted down the front door. The house had three stories, the main floor was used to display his crystal mask collection and an office where he probably met his clients—we found a flyer upstairs that indicated he did some sort of psionic dream therapy. In his desk, we found a partly burned note, indicating that there was some sort of a safe house was located near the Prominence Gate (NE city gate):
A dreamreader cannot pierce silence. When no one dreams, the mind turns inward and rots. The tower must be the cause. Meet us at the safe house near Prominence Gate tonight.Upstairs we found his study, we found a massive library which we were able to bring back to camp. Among the study was a scrying bowl that was still viewing a room was set up for some sort of magic ritual and a warded journal I’m working with the eggheads on how to get into.
The downstairs was set up as a wine cellar to hide the echo arch referred to in the note we found, but this arch is enchanted with psionic power, which none of use were familiar, so we couldn’t figure out exactly how it was to be used. Hopefully the books from his library have a clue one what to do next. We are thinking about heading out in a few days to try and hunt down the safe house referred to in the note. It seemed like we should let you know if you wanted to join us since it was your scale that lead us to the house.
Also, we should all keep an eye on Draylor, he was able to recover a lot of wine from that cellar. I thought dealing with the Saber King might help him get his act together but I think he is sleeping in the woods again and he might be responsible for a lot of this graffiti that has been showing up around camp…I really don’t want him having too much to drink one day and ending up having to deal with Rector-9 because if it.
Poems on the Message board:
Once I Was a Soldier
Once there was a story:
a song, a poem, a dream.
Once there was a shaper,
but that's the old regime.
Once I fought for beauty:
I dared to touch the air.
Once there was a nothing,
but now there's nothing there.
Once I was a pilgrim
on lands of ages sought.
Once there was tomorrow
before it all was bought.
Once there was a kingdom
whose king was bold and wise.
Once I rode the horses
that galloped his demise.
Once there was the knowing;
now there's just the hope.
Once there was the mountain;
now there's just the slope.
Once there were the answers
to every question asked.
Once there was a hero
before he was unmasked.
Once there was a forest
where trees would go to cry.
Once there was a bandit
who stole away the sky.
Once there was a message
that I had known before.
Once there was a feeling;
there is none anymore.
Once I had a vision
of never-ending deep.
Once it brushed my shoulder
but was not mine to keep.
Once I held a candle
whose flame I'd hoped would grow.
Once I was a soldier,
but that was long ago.The Willow Tree
All the things that I foresee
Something else entirely
A blackness that will come to me
And take me from my bed
The locket that was lost at sea
The waves that whisper blasphemy
The past is just a memory
Implanted in my head
Underneath the willow tree
I contemplate your mystery
And reach for your divinity
Until I know I'm deadFuneral of Light
O, follow my voice
and find me in the dark.
Come toward me
and lend me your silver
to fill me with your fire
and show me to nothing.
O, this bed,
vibrate with blindness
and gather my teardrops
to send out into the wind.
Let them guide you--
guide you to the light again.041 - 250820 - Lucid Decent - Seeking Scales II
Date:
446 PC, Brightwane 40-41
Waning Crescent Moon
Players:
Loot:
Players:
Loot:
None
After Actions:
Dev:
Brightwane 40
I’ve been studying some of Lyrent Vale’s books, and I’m almost ready to try casting one of the rituals. If I understand what I’m doing correctly, it should allow me to leave my physical body behind for a short period of time and experience another level of reality. A kind of hyper version of lucid dreaming almost. Ragnum is going to keep an eye on me to make sure nothing goes too wrong…
…
The ritual worked, Soph, but the experience was already starting to fade as I tried to tell Ragnum about it and it’s getting even more difficult to capture as I try to set it down in the journal for you. I felt my awareness leave my body, leave my tent, and leave this camp behind.
I felt an alien presence that seemed almost amused by my efforts. Remember when we went to the circus when we were little, and we saw the bear walking on the tightrope? The bear wasn’t a very good acrobat, but who cared? It was a bear walking on a tightrope! And that’s a little like how I felt, except this presence had no qualms pointing out that what I was doing didn’t really make sense to it.
It communicated in thoughts, images and colors. I only got a sense that it was curious about my momentary intrusion, not that it was hostile towards me. Which is very fortunate, because I don’t think it would have needed to try very hard to remove me from existence if it wanted to.
I’m going to try to get some sleep. In the morning, Ragnum is going to try to round up Raven and a few of our other friends to go back to Vael’s home and try to use her dragon scale to open the portal.
Brightwane 41
Ragnum gathered up Raven, Die-Anna and Garth by the time I found my coffee and joined them in the mess tent. There was a festive mood in the air because today is Steve’s birthday, and our section leader was celebrating with a big stack of pancakes and plans to relax and enjoy his day.
After giving our friends the highlights of my experience with the ritual, we let Sarna know we were heading out and we made our way back to Vael’s home. It looked like a survey team had verified the building was structurally sound and monster-free, but otherwise it seemed the same as we’d left it.
We headed down to the basement and Raven touched her scale to the arch. I felt reality shift, and there was a silvery liquid surface filling the area underneath the arch that hadn’t been there before. Die-Anna stuck her hand through without any apparent thought for safety, and jumped all the way through a moment later.
I didn’t want to be left behind and miss seeing the dragon if there was indeed one waiting for us on the other side of the portal, so I followed her through even though I know it wasn’t the wisest idea. It was a bit of a let down, honestly.
We found a big room with a podium and 12 more masks. Ragnum wanted to loot them all. He could feel knowledge in the first one he picked up, but he has a strong enough sense of who he is that he was able to hold onto his identity.
Die-Anna was not so fortunate. In the moment she touched the mask that she reached for, she experienced the entire life of some pre-collapse juice baron. Ragnum even recognized the name – he had commemorative juice cups or something back home.
The rest of us decided the masks weren’t that interesting anymore, though I think Ragnum still wants to go back and catalog the experiences of those long-dead people.
We continued onward down a hallway. Garth was the first one to notice a door that wasn’t all the way there. One moment he was in the hallway, the next he was gone. Ragnum and the others were able to see it then. I couldn’t, even though I knew it had to be there. Ragnum tied a rope to me and I tried to follow him through, but the rope just fell away the instant he disappeared.
Die-Anna and Raven finally managed to persuade me to believe in the door that I knew had to be there so I could finally see it. I went through before it disappeared again.
I saw an older, more experienced version of me casting spell after spell – things that I don’t know how to do, or even how they might work. But I could tell it was all going wrong. If I was trying a fire spell, I got water. If I was trying a lighting spell, I got earth. A voice asked if I would keep trying or if I’d give up.
Soph, I know you don’t always agree with my choices, but you know I would never give up. But nothing seemed to help the other Dev. I managed to influence him enough to realize he needed to stop and center himself. Instead of casting these increasingly elaborate spells that kept going further and further out of control, I got him to try casting our first spell, the one we know best – the simple Light cantrip that made me realize that I could be a wizard.
And with that, I was back in the hallway. I had a vision of a mask imparting a lesson: Clarity is the frame – without it, brilliance is only noise. Do not seek to multiply what you cannot master.
And Garth and Ragnum were there. Raven and Die-Anna soon followed. Die-Anna seemed like she had a more literal battle with her figurative demons than the rest of us, but none of us seemed especially eager to relive the details.
We continued on down the hallway. And then on down the hallway again. And again. And maybe about the third time, Ragnum decided to put down a copper piece so we’d have a way to tell if we kept going down the same hallway. It wasn’t there the next time we got to the spot. A few loops later, Ragnum thought to check his pocket and it was right back where it had started.
Somehow, we got out of that endless hallway – the whole experience had a dreamlike quality and I really don’t know whether I believe any of it “happened” in the conventional sense after we touched the scale to the arch. So maybe I’m putting things out of the order that they happened, or maybe we each had a different experience.
We found ourselves in a lounge with the most comfortable looking chaise lounges all over the place. There was a table with various sleeping potions, and a general sense of weariness threatened to overtake us. Ragnum was the first to succumb, but we definitely felt like falling asleep here might be the last thing we would do.
After an unsuccessful attempt by Die-Anna, Raven managed to wake Ragnum. He was not happy about being pulled out of his dream state. He was exploring a strange room that had some amphitheater seating turned into a fort, and piles of treasure. There were childish carvings that got more detailed the further you got from the floor, and who knew what else because we woke him up while he was in the middle of exploring.
Raven planned to stand watch and Die-Anna rigged some kind of contraption with a candle and a dagger that was designed to wake her if Raven fell asleep. It turned out that was good planning, because Raven ended up right there with us in the dream world.
It was just as Ragnum described, but before long we were attacked by dream monsters. As I was looking at one of the piles of treasure, an unreal dog jumped out at me. I hit it with Magic Missile, but it ended up biting me pretty badly. I finished it off with Thunderwave as the others were dealing with the monsters that attacked them.
And then Die-Anna’s contraption went off and she woke us up. We were back in the lounge. But now there was a ghostly outline of a door that wasn’t there before, and as we watching, a series of words carved themselves in sparks of violet fire: “Speak your oath and meet the Mentor.”
I feel like this Mentor is the presence that noticed me when I conducted the ritual yesterday. I don’t know what oath is being asked of us, though.043 - 250827 - Mind Over Thought - Seeking Scales I
Date:
446 PC, Brightwane 44
Players:
Loot:
Players:
Loot:
After Actions:
Dev:
While I was busy researching rituals and illusion magic, I completely lost track of time. Yesterday, the tea bush we planted in the pot of awakening we found in the Temple District awakened.
It’s adorable! It came looking for me in the mess tent (I remembered to go to breakfast today – you’d be proud.) “It” probably is the wrong pronoun… maybe I should use “they” instead? They called me “Papa” and asked me to name them! They seemed so cheerful, I named them “Merry.” Merry offered me some of their leaves to make a cup of tea, and it was the best green tea that I’ve ever had.
Ragnum, Garth and Die-Anna wanted to go back to Lyrent Vael’s home to see if we could find out how to speak our oaths to meet the Mentor. Draylor was up for tagging along since he missed the last adventure. Merry wanted to come too, and since most of the dangers in Vael’s home only existed in our minds it seemed like a safe enough adventure to bring them along.
We couldn’t work out how to get past the puzzle. The oaths from our previous visions seemed to be tied to specific masks, but no one really knew how to use that insight to move forward.
As we started to head back, we heard arguing from the next street over. We went over to investigate and found Laris (the one who briefly was the priest of an unnamed bird god), Nettie, and one of the other scouts who brings a big wolf everywhere having a heated discussion about whether they could just mark off this block as being “done.”
Laris said, “the wards are hungry,” which isn’t anywhere near the weirdest thing I’ve heard him say – but he’d been pretty normal ever since he came back from the dead. Ragnum offered for us to check the block and let them hang back and report if anything went awry.
Garth and I had a little more sense and let the rest of our party lead the way. The block did feel creepy – I understood immediately why the others were spooked. Our footsteps even sounded wrong.
We noticed every doorway had at least one burned-down candle. Some had so many they were difficult to tell apart in the waxy remains. Die-Anna decided to check inside a couple of the homes, and it looked like they were abandoned very suddenly – clothes were left behind like people just disappeared.
When she felt a tug at the place where she felt her soul connect with her body, I was beyond spooked and wanted to get the hell away from there. We pressed onward, though, so we could report to Steve that the block had truly been cleared.
We found a tavern named “The Copper Cup,” and it, too seemed to have been abandoned suddenly. There were signs that it had been in use for at least a little while after the Collapse, though. There was graffiti referring to “we the dreamless” and “The Tower eats first.”
We found evidence of newspaper production in a back room, with a bunch of issues of a broadsheet that had been printed right before the Collapse. The lead story was about High Priest Atries going on a quest. There was also an ad for Lucid Revelries, which was almost certainly Vael’s group. If I hadn’t experienced what remains of their magic, I would have considered them charlatans.
A further search turned up little of interest, but I did find a magical hot plate which should make it easier for me to brew coffee or tea without venturing into the mess tent.
Die-Anna found a secret room, with remains of a sigil like the ones I used in the dream ritual I found in one of the books from Vael’s library. There were meeting minutes talking about the rise in rejection rates for people applying to the Tower, the growing number of “quiet neighborhoods” and a candle shortage. People were questioning whether the administration was still serving them. Overall, it painted a picture of a very unsettled timeUnresolved Threads:
Where is Vault VTC-713?
What was the “Order of the Lucent Thought”
Who/what exactly is Lyrent Vael?
What is unstable about the Prominence Gate?