Chapter 03

General Summary

The Lonely Manor

• Our heroes step into a beautiful—if small—valley tucked in amongst the foothills of the Mountains of Sun in Tamre. A wooden two-story manor stands in the center of the valley with a stone chapel of obvious dwarven design off to the right.
• As the heroes approach the manor’s front door, a small earth elemental rises and welcomes them with a challenge:

  You stand at a crossroads within an ancient cavern, seeking a magical artifact you need to save the world. To the north, you hear the faint cries of dwarves trapped behind a collapsing passage. To the south, a hidden chamber glows with an ethereal light, likely containing the artifact. The passage north is slowly giving way. You only have time to save the dwarves or retrieve the artifact.

• Our heroes choose to save the dwarves and the elemental sinks back into the ground, blessing them with Advantage on their next Charisma ability check.
• A brief survey of the manor reveals that it has an interior courtyard accessible from the east side of the structure.
• Entering through the front door, they find the manor well-preserved and obviously constructed for dwarven residents—the door handles and desks and chairs are all set at heights convenient for dwarves.
• In the main foyer, three statues in the form of a bearded male, a nurturing female, and a lion (collectively symbols of The Creator understood as a triumvirate entity: Architect, Mother, and Offspring), greet them. The male and female stand with a single hand outstretched, palm up. The lion’s maw is wide as if in a snarl. To the west side of the foyer are four spheres of obvious magical significance: red, blue, white, and black. Our heroes surmise they represent elements (red=fire; white=air; blue=water; black=unknown). Setting the blue orb in the Mother’s hand, the red orb in the Lion’s mouth, but leaving the Architect’s hand empty, the heroes find that rest of the doors in the house remain locked.
• DeClain wanders down the north hallway which is decorated with pictures of a dwarven family. He surmises this manor was owned by a dwarven patriarch whose wife died before him. His children and grandchildren are seen in pictures created over the course of many years.
• While DeClain is wandering, Midgwyn manages to lockpick the east door out of the foyer and discovers a living room with several sofas circling the room and a large table with multiple books scattered across its surface, including one called Personal Reflections: Ja’acob Hardfoot. The party recalls that Ja’acob Hardfoot is the name of the dwarven cleric whose prophecy of the Crossing of Swords began the cycle of events that led to the Sundering. They surmise that the manor must once have belonged to him. That doesn’t explain, however, who has been maintaining the manor for the last thousand years. Midgwyn reads the introduction to the book:
  

  The world is a forge, heating to white-hot tension in anticipation of the Crossing of Swords. The peoples of Aerith, their hearts aflame with righteous anger, hammer at the anvil, forging a defense against the coming darkness. It is a glorious sight, a testament to the spirit of our people.
  
  Yet, a cold dread gnaws at my core. For while the enemy is a tangible threat, there are shadows deeper, more insidious. The Wolf, the Boy, and the Warrior - these figures loom in the prophecy, their roles as mysterious as the depths of the earth. Are they allies, or foes? Or perhaps something else entirely?
  
  I cannot stand idly by. The weight of this knowledge bears down upon me like a mountain. I must find them, guide them, or at least prepare for their arrival. A plan is forming, a desperate gamble: the Great Machine. A fusion of ancient dwarven wisdom and the burgeoning knowledge of the surface world. It will be a beacon, a searchlight piercing the gloom. To build it will be a Herculean task, but the fate of the world may depend on it...

• DeClain wanders back into the main foyer and decides, on a whim, to place the black orb into the statue of the Architect’s open palm. When he does, a series of audible clicks are heard as the doors throughout the manor unlock. He opens the west door and is immediately confronted with the wonderful aroma of fine food, a temptation he cannot resist. After partaking in a traveler’s stew, he finds himself reinvigorated, his aches and pains of the previous several days eliminated.
• While the others join DeClain, Midgwyn and Maiya continue exploring the east side of the manor and discover a downstairs master bedroom with a wardrobe, a fine chest at the foot of a bed, and a study desk. Midgwyn attempts to open the chest but breaks one of her lockpicks on it instead. Finding nothing else in the room, Maiya rejoins the rest of the party in the dining room while Midgwyn continues to explore.
• While most of the party congregates in the dining room, Zafaris heads through the doors north of the dining room and discovers a large study full of bookshelves, diagrams, assorted gear, and a large desk at the north end of the marble-floored room. Behind the desk is a large portrait of the dwarven cleric, Ja’acob Hardfoot, and a brown-scaled dragon lying beside him. Eventually DeClain joins Zafaris and gets closer to the portrait, running his hand across its surface. Surprisingly, the desk animates and attacks DeClain, prompting the rest of the heroes to come to his aid. After a brief melee, the desk is left in shambles. Sifting through the debris, a large key is found. Midgwyn quickly determines, however, that the key does not fit the chest in the bedroom she found earlier.
• Exploring the rest of the downstairs area of the manor, the heroes find a kitchen, a storage room, a greenhouse (in which they briefly fight an assassin vine), servants’ quarters, a servants’ dining hall, and even a workshop filled with Masterwork Tools.

The Cellar

• Accessing it through the kitchen, a root cellar is discovered beath the manor, stocked with meats, cheeses, and other items needing refrigeration.
• At the east end of the root cellar Midgwyn discovers a secret door that leads into a dark hallway with a dead end. Partway down the hallway, however, is a locked door that Midgwyn is able to bypass.
• Opening it, our heroes discover the bottom of the well they’d discovered on their preliminary inspection of the grounds surrounding the manor.
• A receptacle about the size of a man’s chest is inset into the bottom of the well and DeClain figures out it looks the Heartstone the Gräuel stole from Zafaris’ airship would fit perfectly inside.
• Understanding the Heartstone to be a magical battery, our heroes quickly determine that this receptacle must power something in the manor. Erring on the side of caution, they decide to wait to determine what to do about the receptacle and instead explore the second floor of the manor.

The Second Floor

• The second floor of the Hardfoot Manor reveals two upstairs bedrooms, several viewing areas, and a private study. A single book lies atop the desk in the center of the room with a book titled, in dwarvish, Crucible. Oleander reads the cover, then decides to open it and begins reading. As he does so, everyone’s mind is overcome by a white fog, and their consciousness is swept away…

Report Date

04 Aug 2024