Session 29 - Sol'Partha

A very tall, muscular grey skinned Firbolg with big heavy banded bracers, no shirt, large threaded red cord around forearms, and large stone shin-pads on their legs standing at the top of the stairs to the Storyteller.
Green skinned, yellow eyes Grung with the Firbolg. Has armoured shoulder pads and has a blade sheathed behind his back.
Magnet Taharja, Sapphire Lynx are taverns recommended to go to in the Papava District. Malaphor for whatever reason wants to go to the Sacred Court district as it's richer and will somehow have less thievery? Suddenly concerned with thievery here than other places we've been to.
We head to the Little Courtesan tavern/inn. As we arrive, I notice coming from the palace behind the walls, there is light coming up like beams stretching in to the skyline. As night settles in, the light beams are a lot more prominent as the sun has set.
 
Halfling male called Mr Clementine manning the front desk of the Little Courtesan.
 
We get rooms for the night and in the morning we make our to The Eager Crown and the Concocted Chaos to buy some healing potions before making our way out of Hashal to the North to go to the Partha Ruins.
 
Concocted Chaos run by Vallo Bitterspit, a short red coloured Kobold.
 
After our errands we head out through the Northern part of the city and make our way towards The Shifting Sands which is incredibly gusty and we're being constantly peppered by sand. We cover our faces best we can to avoid being hindered too much by it.
 
Thankfully I manage to guide our way, and a while later. We see a tall slightly slanted, grey sand stoned mottled tower. In front of this tower, we see two lines facing each other, very weathered sand burned statues that are likely of Dwarves, but details have been grinded away over the centuries.
We get closer, and atop a dune while looking down at it, it looks very much like the same entrance that I saw in a vision given to me by Moradin.
 
Near one of the statues, Austar points out that he detected an enemy with his wand. We move to the left of the statues to avoid the mound we saw on the right but unfortunately see another mound on the left. We go back to the left and get an initial attack on the Titanus Centipede and we start our first battle. They have a flame based power when hitting in melee, and a strange fire based thing that hits from a distance.
 
On the door of the ruins, I see the familiar Moradin symbol that I saw in my vision, but as a backdrop to it I see strange jagged wings that I'm unfamiliar with.
 
In the central chamber of the old Dwarven civilization of Sol'Partha. Large chamber, not quite circular that seems to be the top of the structure we entered. Above us is an additional floor with a staircase leading to it. In the centre of the room, is a raised pedastal made of a strange contraption made of various metals. At the top is a large six feet across, 5 feet tall, oval piece of inch thick dusted glass rimmed in thick heavy gold.
 
One of the walls there is a large gap that is missing something, which my guess is the large Moradin symbol taken and is now in display at the Gratius Centre of Discovery.
 
On the left hand side opposite the spiral staircase going up, there is a dipped down partially buried in sand hallway.
 
Going up the spiral stairs, the hole in the middle perfectly aligns with the central mechanism. Looking at the top, I notice in stonework, lines of metal that are within the cracks on the roof section of the ceiling.
 
At the front of the contraption, there are a number of levers and strange switches. Seem to be connected deep within this creation. Either side of it, there are two wheels with handles, more like a big piece of metal and a lip at the front to get my hand in. Myself and Malaphor start to crank the wheels. As we're twisting, the top section begins to turn gradually, as well as rising up towards the ceiling. As it gets to the ceiling, the very top of the tower opens up to allow this glass lens to go out off the tower, now sitting 10 feet above the tower. As I take a step away, I see various different pipes, coils of metals that make up most of it. At the bottom I see a smaller golden rimmed piece of glass. It seems to be pointing towards down a corridor and see another oval piece of class. The glass lens in the hallway I initially turn to face down towards the door, but I realise it was set up so if anything were to reflect off it, it would go towards the door, and back up the hallway towards the main room we entered from.
 
I push the door open and we see more mechanical contraptions but as I step in I step on a stone slab that lowers. In the room we see 2 skeletons plastered in arrows so I keep my foot down on the stone slap. I get brought into Ape's Menagarie Box and he tells me nothing happened. Heard a whirring like a trap trying to activate. The skeletons have the simples of the Gratius Centre on their clothing.
Smaller mechanical contraption similar to the first room. Peering down the contraption, a gap in the floor goes down. There is another glass lens in the centre, which I at an angle to point towards the door we came through, and back down into the hole beneath it. We go to the spiral staircase going down, which we travel down for 10 minutes, which we then arrive into a room. We see another mechanical pedestal with another piece of glass, above it I see a hole in the ceiling that goes up where the one from the previous room is. On the left hand side of this room, is an open archway going to another room with a breeze coming from it. I point it towards the piece of glass above the arch.
 
Walking out of the archway, is a very large cavernous room, 80 feet in length. This part of the ruins has been build into an existing cave system. Ahead is a long bridge, on the right, dwarven statues holding blades. On the left of the passage is a deep chasm, about 30 feet away rocky wall of the cave. Braziers along the bridge burst to light magically one after another. A large double door at the end of the bridge, lit by two smaller sconces. Above the door, another glass oval built into the wall. The statues come forward as we step in front of them. We activate them with mage hand and go through.
 
"Struck from the rock and the metal she wrought, she brings life to ruined blade. By hosts and bandits alike she is greeted with open palms, though none dare embrace her. Who is she?" appear in old Dwarven on the door after I touched it, which heated up but I pulled away before being hurt by it.
 
The answer is seemingly "fire" but nothing we try seems to work when opening the door. We then keep hearing loud screeching noises and coming from below the bridge, is a large white skinned beast.