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Fri 27th Mar 2020 09:42

Marked by Fire and Ice

by Drogo

These few days kept on being tumultuous. It's was evening when we got back to the material world, and we knew that Bahamut had gotten us to the mountain where Nogna was buried - the goliath barbarian that was part of the group who dealt with the Dragon Masks a few hundred years ago. We had been warned that this place would be guarded by illusions, and we realized that we needed to rest for a while, so we quickly located a cave where we could rest. The next morning, we tried to locate an entrance to the tomb and Roshanna found the tomb rather quickly. We heard monsters being around, and managed to get into the tomb just before a Rock caught up with us. Not sure if it was real or not.
 
Once inside the tomb, we found some monsters whom we realized where illusions, but they still had to be fought. Daar managed to get some of them to disappear magically, but most of them had to be beaten down. They didn't actually hurt us with physical claws, which was a bit of a problem. We eventually found a crossroad in the cave tunnel, where we could feel heat to one side, cold to the other side, and the last tunnel was a waterfilled one going downwards. We took that one, and ended up in a huge cavern, partly filled with water and with a tower with branches going upwards in the cavern. There was a door at the bottom of the tower - under water - and after a bit of a hassle we managed to open it. That resulted in a bit of a water surge, and we where quickly surged upwards into the tower...
 
Once the water had settled, we found ourselves in a room with an altar, of sorts, dedicated to Bahamut. I realized that Nognas way of "praying" had been to slam her arms into the altar, and I decided to try in - in honour of Nogna, and believing that this might open up a pathway to Nognas resting chamber. I had to climb up on top of the altar to reach though - Nogna was quite a bit larger than I am. Oh well, size doesn't matter - except that large people often are bulky. I prefer being small. Anyway, I slammed my arms into the altar - and by doing that, my right arm was suddenly engulfed in scorching flames while my left arm was surrounded by ice, biting cold. The flames and the ice hurt, at first, but I immediately felt that both fire and ice merged into me, becoming part of me. I started to laugh maniacally - not sure why, actually, but it felt good at the moment.
 
I am Drogo the Half, Platinum Ferret of Fury, marked by Fire and Ice and wielder of The Rage of Bahamut.
 
After calming Daar down, promising her that it really wasn't anything dangerous, we started climbing up inside one of the branches that we had seen from the outside. The blasted tunnel had an inconsiderate notion of trying to eat us, but I smacked some of the teeth and then Daar dispelled the illusion. Bah. Magic. I still hate it, even though I have it all around nowadays. We eventually got to Nogna's grave chamber, but there was a few tentacle monster we had to vanquish first. After dealing with that, we could focus on Nogna - she was HUGE, and she was engulfed in a blue, glowing crystal. Just behind her neck was the piece of the Seal, our primary mission of visiting her grave. Her tattoos were impressive, and she wore a beautiful platinum amulet around her neck, shaped like the symbol of Bahamut. The chrystal was rock hard, and cold. There was an inscription in runes by her feet, saying "Bahamut's cold and heat", and after a while I realized what that meant. The crystal was already cold, and when I activated my fire arm, I could stretch my arm into the crystal, reaching into it and grabbing the piece of the Seal. I quickly considered taking the amulet that hung around Nogna's neck, but out of respect for her and for Bahamut, I let it be.

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