Chambers of Despair - Bismuth Abbey

General Summary

Last time, the group began further exploration of the catacombs beneath the Bismuth Abbey. In their exploration they found looters, one of whom survived the subsequent spider attack caused by the noisiness of the interaction. Justin, the remaining member of the team, deciding his chances were best with the Wardens and decided to share a map of the catacombs that had been given to him by his employer. Curious about a room labeled “sword”, the group proceeded down to a chamber Sarya had previously explored that seemed related to the Platinum Heart. As Adama placed his flaming sword into the altar, he found himself faced with an offer from one voice of justice while another seemed to offer more expedient vengeance. The desire for revenge being overwhelming, the room seemed to extinguish in light as the blue crystals of the Platinum Heart suddenly darkened leaving Adama holding his new sword, a soft red glow coming off of Unending Vengeance.

The Crown of Pestilence

As Adama stalks through the halls back the way they came, Myra, Hagren, and Raijun remain in the room. The fading blue vein is reminiscent of the last bursts of a firework. The imprint is still bright enough, when Myra closes her eyes to swallow, she sees the pattern on her eyelids. When she opens them again the room is pitch black, the oath of justice having been so forsaken in the holy space that all divinity seems to have retreated. Myra steps forward to the alter and slams her fist on the stone, the tang of iron entering the room as she rips open a wound from the earlier battle. "I'm sorry," she whispers. Louder but still low enough that those outside the room would not hear, "I don't know what to do Raijun. I try and I try to understand..." She sighs and runs a hand through her hair, barely visible in the light flickering in from the doorway. "Vengeance may be what he desires but will it bring anything but more pain? Doesn't he see it will only dig the pit deeper?"
Raijun looks around at the holy altar, while not quite as observant as Myra, still seems to feel the grace of divinity retreating, the small rock he had inserted into his sword pommel now feeling brighter due to the absence of light.
He looks at her solemnly and replies, “Your words assume that he cares for others enough to stop and look back at the warpath and the chaos it brings. I have never known him to be the remorseful type.”
Sighing, he looks around, “You don’t understand through no fault of your own, but merely because you are the opposite end of the spectrum, you care about others almost to a fault, one of the things I’ve always admired about you.
I’ve met people similar to him before, maybe at one point he cared quite a bit, but he seems to feel so slighted that nothing really makes him feel anymore but the hurt, and so he chases it like the vagabonds in the street chase their avarice of choice.”
Raijun goes to sit near Myra now, his expression changing to a more serious one, something Myra sees very rarely, no hints towards jokes or sarcasm this time, only melancholy words follow, “I just hope his grand plan doesn’t forsake those we care about. The callous way he speaks about using Lionscrest as political pawns to throw Slekul into disarray greatly concerns me, if I’m being honest.”
Meanwhile, sitting next to the caved-in rubble, Sarya pulls out her whetstone and her now-partially melted scimitar. She attempts to mend it, focusing on what the Platinum Heart had and had not seen in her. She wanted to protect those in need, but was that truly justice if she did not seek out ways to change the system that had put them in harm's way? That felt too big of a task for someone like her, a coward who had hidden rather than face the truth about who she had called her friends.
She heard Yamil tell Adama that the gods don’t care and she thought about that. They hadn’t stopped her or the rest of the Untamed from doing things that were wrong and Slekul’s church was likely plotting something sinister…
But maybe that wasn’t the point of gods. If you took the ideals of the gods who you felt were worthy, perhaps they would inspire you to do more, be more than you thought you could. With that thought, she looked down at the scimitar in her lap and found that it was now serviceable again. It wasn’t pretty and a blacksmith might faint if they saw it, but she had two blades to work with again.
After a moment Myra, Hagren, and Raijun exit the room. Adama has stalked north and is no longer visible. Myra approaches Justin pulling out her copy of his map, “Was this your handiwork or were you gifted this by your employer?”

“Our employer provided us with instructions.” He pauses, “We took the job after the previous group did not… want to continue.”
“Ah, how well does Urza pay these days?”
“I don't know who you're talking about. Just here to collect some coin from things that are sitting underground, untouched. Just looking to get out. Are we going to be getting out now? You done trying to…Do whatever you're doing.” Gesturing to the room that held the altar of the Platinum Heart.
“I mean, I suppose that depends entirely about you and your map. Do you have any idea how to actually get to these rooms?” Myra asks pointing to the rooms with the stairs.
“Yes,” He looks over her shoulder, “we need to go back,” tracing a path through the room they entered from until he taps the room marked ‘Danger’.
“Right,” Myra sighs, “through danger. Perfect.”
“That's why we were trying to go back up the other way, but… The key got eaten. Thanks to you all.”
“Right.” Myra looks down the hall to where Sarya seems to be investigating the cave in, “Sarya you good down there. Did you need something?”
“Yeah,” she walks over and taps the map, “ I was just curious about this ‘soil’.” She turns back down the hall to the caved in path. Glancing over her shoulder, “I'll be back.”
“Don’t-” before Myra can finish Sarya is a tarantula and scurrying over the rubble. Myra lets out a breath, “Okay good luck.”
As Myra frowns at the caved in hallway, Justin turns to her again, “I'm here working for the guild. I don't know any Urza by association.”
“Which Guild would that be?” Myra doesn’t turn away from the tunnel watching where Sarya left.
“The Shakari. Hunters, acquirers of rare things.”
“Yes, I believe we met some other of your members previously.”
“Ah well, if you could put in a good word once we get out of here that would be certainly appreciated.
Sarya moves over the rubble, it's a little treacherous and you come to a spot where she can see light. It’s green tinted and there’s a smell of loamy petrichor. And in the light coming from the chamber beyond, there is a very slow rhythmic movement in the speed of like kelp or something moving underwater as the light is getting blocked from the stones still in front of her. Backtracking she finds another path of vines and roots that she’s able to traverse. As she steps on them they react as if they are acknowledging the presence of something else living upon it and she feels revitalized spiritually. The kind of calm of being in the deep forest, of returning to nature, washes over her. She pushes forward and as the rocks give way she can see a hallway extending both north and south. She notices soft grass glowing in the stones toward the south, it seems to be moving softly.
Sarya mind links back to Myra and explains the situation, “So there's a lot of growing stuff down here, uhm? Maybe there's another way to find it? Uh, I'm gonna keep going. Just wanted to check in.”
Myra’s voice comes back in Sarya’s mind, “Be safe. I don't know…” She pauses, “Before we could have gotten through quite quickly. But now… Without another entrance, I'm not sure how quickly any of us can get there.”
“It looks like the hallway jogs behind the room we were first in?”
“We could proceed that way and see if it meets up. Try to meet you there. Just, be safe.”
Sarya considers, feeling the pull of the plants but sighs turning around, “No, I'll come back.” Myra can tell there’s a hesitation but a moment later a small spider appears from the tunnel and Myra offers a hand so the spider can crawl up onto her shoulder.
Myra reviews the map again, “Headed back towards danger then. Of course…”
“I'm gonna wait outside that room,” Justin adds.
“Well we have to get to it first, right?”
“Right, but I’ll stay behind, you know…”
“If you want to chance it with the spiders, be our guest. We'll hear your screams long before they get to us.”
“Yeah, I'll take my chances.”
Myra shrugs, “suit yourself.” Myra starts making her way back, passing Yamil in the corridor, “Are you okay?”
“Fine. Are we ready to continue?”
“Seems so,” she starts back down the corridor through the portcullis. When she doesn’t see Adama she mentally calls out their next location as they head back to the pillar room to the right of the tomb of the son of the platinum heart. Myra sighs as she looks at the doors, “Well the danger room is south,” she points to the bottom door.
Hagren and Trenchcoat flank Justin following Myra. He turns to them, “So you guys do work like this before?”
Hagren shrugs, “It's been a while.” He pauses, “Last time it was against snake people.”
Justin’s mouth just kind of like opens a little bit and then closes a moment later, “Okay. And everybody… Everybody made it out of that one.”
“Well, I mean there were the uh –” Raijun looks at Justin, “Never mind. Yeah, everybody made it out safe.”
“Well, except for the snake cultists,” Hagren adds.
“I mean, that's… that's good,” Justin says shaken.
Myra’s paused in the room in which they started, “Are we going to one of the other rooms or are we just going toward the exit?”
“Other rooms.” Raijun says excitedly, "There could be anything in there, even another room."
“Yeah, is there a reason that we're rushing out of here?” Adama asks.
“Most of us are injured,” Myra notes the scrapes across the party, “and it seems that we're three levels down. I mean we don't need to rush, but I also don't particularly need to pursue a book of the Deathless.”
“Well, maybe it could come in useful,” Raijun suggests.
“We don't know what we don't know, and right now we don't know a lot. There’s a lot of information here that might answer questions that we have. We don’t even know what we don’t know.”
“Are you proposing going to one of the other two rooms?” Myra gestures to the door to the north and east.
“I’m proposing methodically going through all the rooms.”
“I gotta say, I don't disagree,” Raijun says. “There might be something here that we could either learn that could help us or some sort of an item that could help us.”
“I’d prefer to get to Panha,” Sarya says in their minds, still being in spider form.
“I agree, I mean if you’re asking why I’d like to get out, I’d like to get to Panha and I’d prefer to find help for Nari,” Myra gestures to the still unconscious form of Nari on the disk, “sooner rather than later.”
“Nari will be fine,” Raijun reassures as she lays twitching on the disk.
At the mention of Panha, Yamil speaks up, “Yes, it would be good if we could move this along. Well, I need to at least make sure that you all are safe before making an exit. I have no desire to return back up… But I am intrigued to see what these other rooms are. I think to the credit of one of the group's leaders,” he claps Adama on the shoulder, “we don’t know what has been forgotten down here and some parts, like your new sword there, might be useful. Who knows?”
“Yes, who knows… fine if everyone is eager to explore. Hagren, could you open the northmost then?” Pointing to the door to the north, Myra makes her way to the south to attempt to see if that way is clear. “Mind the floor.”

There are crystals growing along the pillars along the sides of the room and and there is this sense of pride and dread as you traverse from the red side of the room to the yellow side of the room. As Hagren moves past a mosaic he sees a scene of the building of massive temples, the work of these beings to assist or to enslave the humanoids.
Both of them reaching their doors in tandem, Hagren finds the north door locked as Myra finds the southern door jammed. As Myra inspects the door itself spider Sarya notices a crack and peers through it. In the other room Sarya sees light blue light and a darker but more kind of peaceful serene glow. On the far side of the room there is this chittering sound and as she refocuses her vision she sees beings, different from what you encountered previously but arachnid in form, seeming to gnaw and eat at the crystals. She notices there seem to be no webs in the room but there do seem to be stalactites hanging from the ceiling. Sarya relays that as Myra continued to investigate the door, the noise seeming to attract some of the occupants of the further room.
Up at Hagren, his door is an ornate setting. It has depictions of symbols similar to what Myra has around her workshop and within her drawings, or similar to containers on ships used for transport of liquids or chemicals. Finding the door locked, Hagren cracks his knuckles and pulls out his tools. It takes a minute as components of the doors have rusted. As soon as he feels the last tumbler click small ports on the door open and a fine dust coats him. As a moment passes as Hagren considers the age of the door the dust that sprayed out begins to burn his skin.
Turning away from her door to tell the others of the spiders Myra clocks Hagren’s discomfort, “You all right over there?”
“Nope…”
Myra purposefully circles around on the right hand side of the room. As she comes around she quickly clocks the substances on Hagren, there are a number of them across his arms, hands, face, anything exposed. There appears to be some kind of reaction taking place potentially either a phosphorus derivative or lime.
“What the heck is this stuff,” Hagren says stoically, “expired acid?”
“Ah, not expired. It was intentional, trust me.” She begins trying to dust it off to remove the excess powder trying to remove it from his skin before further attempting to clean the area. As she does so the pain seems to amplify, the burning kinda now intensifies over the affected area. As the dust moves off Hagren there’s a puff and Raijun and Sarya, still in spider form catch a whiff.
Suddenly everything is flipped upside down for Raijun. He’s somehow floating and standing in the air over a bottomless pit, fire wreathed around the basin of what you consider your existence. And there is this a shattering sound of flickering and burning.
Sarya, in a similar way your spider form is not used to this, and you find yourself stuck in a web of your own making. There is this sense of impending doom and fear as you feel the webbing getting tighter and tighter around you. You see, but do not feel the blood being expunged from your body as the webs tighten and you see segments of your body being displaced from its normal form and extended out.
Raijun seems fine for about 3.8 seconds and emits the loudest high pitch scream.
“Raijun?!” Myra asks concerned. When there’s no response but screaming, Myra turns to Hagren, “Hagren I need you to open that door.” As she turns, she accidentally loses Sarya, who has curled herself up into a ball in response. Myra fumbles the catch but manages to prevent any fall damage as she picks up the fragile spider from the floor. As the door opens she finds a corridor lined and glowing sickly yellow and feels the sense of dread that whatever is transpiring, there’s not going to be an immediate fix.
As Myra pushes open the door Hagren asks Trenchcoat to pour water over his body in an attempt to wash the acid off. Just as Tenchcoat is about to start pouring, Myra grabs his arm preventing him from pouring, “I understand that you're in pain and that this seems like a good idea. It isn't. It won't help.”
“But you gotta get it off the boss. He’s gotta get going.” Trenchcoat insists. Looking over his shoulder at Raijun, “I do like the screaming that he's making though.”
Myra dives down the hall following the sickly yellow glow hoping to find the indicated alchemy room and something that might be able to reverse the poison’s effects on her friends. There’s a door at the end of the hall and one on the western wall where the crystals continue. The door looks sickly itself, rotting in place. “Forgive me Gwen,” Myra mutters under her breath as she attempts to kick the rotted door in. As she does so she finds her leg stuck in the door, not having the strength to get the door itself off. “Gods-fucking-damn it I can’t even open doors anymore,” Myra begin swearing under her breath. “Hagren,” she yells, “I need this door open.”
Swapping to Raijun's vision we see him falling through the abyss, and there are arms of either bone, muscle, sinew, flesh, tentacles reaching at you as you fall through this way. Outside the group sees him bolt into the corridor knocking into Myra freeing her from the door but twisting her ankle.
As the door opens Hagren and Myra see an effervescent cloud a couple millimeters off of the floor that seems to be emanating from the large crystals, cracks, and fissures. As they enter a feeling of hopelessness washes over them. Myra pulls down her goggles and pulls up a makeshift mask and steps into the room, and begins looking for something that could help reverse what's happening to Sarya and Raijun. As she’s in the cloud though she gets a whiff and seems to almost collapse to her knees as she feels the weight of all of her setbacks upon her unable to find anything in the room.
The acid continues to burn at Hagren’s flesh motivating him to continue looking as he dashes into the room. He finds a bunch of half empty bookcases. Books torn and falling apart, that which you probably saw in like an old library once but long and forgotten. Pure rot of components and there's a congealed something under a thick film in the cauldron that seemed to almost sway as Myra entered the room. He also sees a door in the back of the room.
As he sees Myra slump to her knees, “You all right?”
“What's the point? We're all gonna die down here, I mean...”
“Perhaps,” but Hagren is determined to find something and continues to the door in the back of the room. He makes quick work of the subsequent trap and enters the backroom.
Raijun feels a set of arms grab and hold him. And now he is being pulled into the wall as there is a figure made of pure shadow and crippling ether, staring at you and talking at you in tongues. In actuality, in the hallway, Yamill has Raijun by the shoulders, preventing him from running and moving any further. Trenchcoat can also be seen trying to ‘help’, but mostly giggling.
As Hagren pushes the back door open he sees another shorter hallway, parts of it have fallen away and looking through the cracked and decrepit door there is, what seems to be kind of a dormitory of sorts. He hisses through his teeth as the acid continues to burn. He tosses the dormitory, finding a number of pages. Lying on one of the beds he sees over on top of one of the bookcases, there's a set of three vials, two of which have a liquid in it and the other has a powder. He also sees a torch that seems newer than the rest of the room.
Myra sees Hagren disappear through the door but can’t bring herself to rise. But as she returns to staring down she catches sight of a chest under one of the bookcases maybe a foot long. She crawls over not having the strength to stand and pulls out the case. It has a lock but as she goes to remove it it falls away the wood peeling. As she flips open the lid inside she finds a poisoner's kit.
Hagren rushes back out with the vials in hand and brings them back out to Myra. Myra, still kneeling takes the vials and opens the poisoners kit and begins combining things. She hands back a paste to Hagren, “apply this where it hurts.”
She turns looking at the spider and at Raijun, now writing in Yamil’s arms. Yamil dragging Raijun into the room, “he won't stop struggling and it is quite difficult to hold this man in place.”
Myra looks back to the vials in her hands, “Aerosol, aerosol how am I going to aerosolize this? Gods, this would be so much easier if I still had the scroll…”
“Don't rely on the tools of gods,” Yamil corrects, “rely on what you have…” He lets go of Raijun for a moment as he steps toward Myra. “Rely on what you have up here,” he taps his head. “You’ll figure this out.”
Myra looks from Yamil back down to her hands, closing her eyes to concentrate as Trenchcoat steps up to hold down Raijun. Trenchcoat stomps on Raijun’s foot to ‘prevent escape’. From Raijuns perspective a hulking figure latches onto his leg. “Get it off, get it off,” Raijun yells.
Myra opens her eyes and digs through her bag finding a spray bottle, dumping out its contents and cleaning it quickly before combining a number of ingredients in the vials and swirling it gently. She takes the spider in her hand and gently sprays it onto the spider.
From Sarya’s sight blood is dripping off her in rivulets as the spay hits but after a moment the room rights and returns to its expected perspective. As Myra sees the spider right itself she lets out a sigh of relief as she gently places the spider on the ground before turning back to Raijun. “Hold him still,” she instructs Yamil and Trenchcoat. As she douses with the antidote Raijun, “look this is still less awkward than the last time I had to save you.”
Raijun’s vision slowly returns as he feels the spray of liquid on his face, Yamil restraining from behind as Trenchcoat holds his leg. “Get off! Get off! Get, get, get - Trenchcoat is this you?”
Trenchcoat smiles toothily, “I just saved your life.”
“Are you okay?” Myra asks concerned.
“No! I’ve been falling for thirty minutes!” Raijun yells. Myra sprays him in the face again. “Okay, fine, no I’m alright.”
“Remember you owe me for this,” Trenchcoat smiles.
“The only thing I owe you is my foot up -” Raijun starts. As he sees Myra with the spray bottle still looking concerned, “Sorry, positive thoughts.”
“I already had your foot, it stinks,” Trenchcoat quips.
“So do you, do you shower?” Raijun asks.
“It's a Musk.”
As Myra sees that he has once more returned to himself, she lets out a held breath and returns back to the spider offering Sarya a hand up back to her shoulder. She turns back to Hagren, who has been rubbing the salve on the acid damaged areas and now looks to be in less pain. She gestures to the back room, “Anything else back there that we need to know about? Or can we be done exploring?”
As Raijun’s wiping himself off, “I mean did we find anything in here? I've been losing it for what feels like an hour.”
“Poisoner's kit and the stuff to reverse that…” Myra says gesturing to the supplies. Hagren, did you find anything else?”
“Uh oh, I think there was some sort of research paper in the in the room and was. Would you mind checking that out too?”
“Sure, can you point out where?”
As Hagren leads her into the backroom Myra gently cradles the spider before returning her to her shoulder. Mentally to Sarya, “Are you okay?”
“I'm not bleeding… what happened?”
“A bad trip.”
“Very bad, very bad.”
Hagren leads Myra into the back room; the bunks are decrepit, falling to pieces and rotting away. But Hagren points out where there are notes spread out on one of the bunks. As Myra reviews them she sees that on the pages are alchemical formulas with notes in an unfamiliar language in the margins. The formulas seem incomplete but seem to be related to creating a potion of great power that can be used to bend the chances of fate. They seem to be incomplete, Myra tucking them into one of her notebooks to further review later.
She turns to examine the torch Hagren also pointed out. It seems much newer and when lit it seems to burn green. There seems to be a click as Myra rotates the torch back into place but nothing else seems to change in the room. Myra removes it from the holder and extinguishes it putting it into her back. She turns to the others, “Green torch,” she shrugs. “If we take another break I can look at it further, but there's lots of things that could make it burn green.”
“Like what?” Raijun asks.
Oh, different chemicals. You can make fire turn all sorts of colors. It's very fun really. Copper is a classic for green.”
“So if I wanted a dramatic entrance with blue fire… you could help me arrange that?”
“Oh yeah, easy.”
Myra turns back to Hagren, “Are you okay to continue. It seemed like you bore the brunt of that?”
Hagren shrugs, “I'll live.”
Myra nods turning back to Raijun, “I don't particularly need to… Raijun did you get enough exploring in?”
“Ahhh … Yeah, yeah. After that I’m not as keen to explore the other temples… lots of misery and pain down here.”
“Maybe, let's say, if we find one of the more positively aligned gods, we might further investigate their temples. Instead of oh you know,” gesturing around the room, “the goddess of disease,” Pointing to the rainbow crystal outside the other door in the hallway, “the goddess of tyranny and sadness,” she points back through the open hallway door to the door bearing the mark of Slekul, “the deathless one. I mean I don’t personally feel like I need those in my life.”
“I agree, I concur.”
Myra begins explaining the situation to the door to the south, including what Sarya saw with the rock eating spider. Myra notes it might be a good opportunity for Adama to fireball but Raijun notes he doesn’t seem to be around. Yamil chimes in, “I mean the man just pulled a sword from stone he probably had a lot to think about.”
“I don’t - That’s not quite what happened,” as she heads off to the south back towards the greater room.

Brood of the Tyrant

“Oh so we’re not going through this door? But it’s so bright and colorful.”
“Myra this might be the positive gods door! Look rainbows,” Raijun offers.
Myra crosses her arms looking back from the end of the hallway, “Yeah the chromatic tyrant. She’s a bubble of joy.”
“What now?”
“Tiamat?”
“You mean,” Raijun attempts to mimic many heads screaming.
“Yes that is how she is often depicted,” Yamil laughs.
Myra sighs, already understanding where they are going next, “Your call Raijun, you were the one being pulled apart. You want to open the door?” As Raijun turns towards the door Myra winces, “Maybe check for traps first…”
As he turns to the door, “Maybe she knows something about the Dragon Ninja. I mean she is a dragon queen.” As he observes the beautifully carved onyx door, “Well, you know, in my experience, onyx doesn't really have the capacity for traps, 'cause it's kind of glossy. Besides it’s not locked, it's practically inviting us in.”
As Raijun opens the door he sees dozens of little mats laid out across the room grouped in clusters of grouped in twos and fours. Dried blood can be seen on all of them. Against one wall is an altar depicting various gems of draconic nature. One of them is missing. In the center of the room there is an idol of a torrent of chains, made-up of different colors, each depicting a head of the chromatic tyrant looking out into the room. Myra reviews the gems, each one cut like the eyes of a dragon and notices that the sapphire is missing.
Raijun moves around the idol, a depiction of the rightful subservience and order of oppression, too the dragon figure. As Raijun looks further he also notices a depiction of a large female humanoid figure, and then there's this kind of continued iconography of chains.
As the group continues to step into the room, they feel their movement slowed. As they are bathed in the chromatic light they feel themselves restricted as if there were chains weighing them down. Raijun turns to the others, “Oh my god, is this what it feels like to be you, Myra?” Myra has begun subconsciously rubbing her wrists. Not getting an answer Raijun continues, “Okay should we do anything here?” Moving up beside Myra at the altar. As he does so Raijun has a flash of the vision he saw recently. Many of the dressings and iconography, and even some of the people that are depicted in the pictures carved into the wall look familiar. “I feel like I've been here before.”
Myra looks over concerned, “You do?”
Raijun points to some of the stuff on the wall, “I've seen that and that, and like this…”
“When?!”
“You know a vision I had when I was in the other room…. Look I didn't know! I just opened the door and all of a sudden you know there's the prophecy.”
“Well, what was the vision of?”
Raijun explains the vision (Deep Beneath - Bismuth Abbey ), as he concludes, “And then I saw Tintreach and… I don't know. Something about this place? Connect like what I'd seen to like the location in the room like is there anything that might from my vision tipped me off as to what I could be doing in the room?” As Raijun talks he notices a feeling, a low rhythmic kind of pulse that reminds him of his experience with the necromancy scroll. As he follows it it leads him to the far door, “I feel like they were doing something… I feel like it was coming from this way,” as he points to the door now in front of him.
Raijun is unable to translate the words on the door before him but calling Myra over she translates, “Hatching room.” Myra sighs, “oh boy.”
“You know what I'm going to say next, right?”
“That we’re going in….”
“I mean, do you guys not want dragons?”
“I mean, if we need to fight one of those down here it is probably not the best place, but at the same time probably can't fly away,” as Yamil pokes up at the ceiling with his glaive.
Ryan says, “I fought a dragon in a small room before. Believe me, verticality going up walls makes a big difference.”
“Really? That must have been some contest, must be some fierce beast.”
“There were multiple!” Raijun starts as Myra cuts him off.
“Raijun if we’re going through can you help me look at the door before I attempt to open it and spray something else in my face?” Raijun nods and moves over to help Myra with the door. It take Myra a minute to unlock and as it does the door seems to shift as the dragon motif on it changes, the dragons moving up on the door and the humanoids below bow down. Beyond the door is a hallway with another door at its end. As they approach it the entire group feels the rhythm that Raijun mentioned before. As they make it to the door the carvings are of great wings extending out as Myra calls out the inscription, “Brood of the true queen.” Myra looks at Raijun, noting the excitement in his eyes turns to the next door and begins working at the lock. As the tumblers click Myra gets the sinking feeling that the door is locked to keep something in more than to keep them out.
Parts of the door have eroded away through time, and with that the wings transition out into the side walls. As the door swings open and dust settles, chromatic light bathes the hallway. Raijun laughs, “Are you seeing this?”
“Oh my…” Myra whispers, as before the group is an enormous multicolor eggs where the thrumming seems to be emanating from.
“How would you even get this out of here?”
“I think it used to be smaller,” Myra points to the cracking floor, the small fissures emanating from the egg.
As the group looks around the room, they feel the oppressive weight which seems to emanate from the egg. Raijun is the first to posit that the feeling is actually feeding the egg, pointing to the radiating crystals around it. “Everything is telling me not to touch it…” Raijun says inching closer.
“Honestly, I am surprised you haven't or haven't tried to smash it yet,” Myra says quietly.
“Okay that's the thing,” Raijun touches the stone of the Platinum Heart out of reflex as he does he feels emboldened and a blue light begins to emit and repel the surrounding chromatic light. “What is the right thing to do?”
Myra seems to be keeping away from the egg, but shrugs from behind Raijun. “I suppose that depends on your definition of right. I mean this is the brood of the Tyrant, the literal evil goddess but…”
“Right! I mean imagine if this thing hatches. Do you guys think we care about the threat before it's a threat?” Raijun asks.
Myra is unusually quiet on the subject, her eyes never leaving the large egg in the center of the room. Raijun clutches the stone of Bahamut more tightly, “Right, so from what I’m thinking we should probably try to destroy it.” Myra looks resigned. Raijun begins looking around the room for a weak spot, “If we just leave this thing, who knows if it wakes up and then takes out the entire continent? You know what I mean?”
Myra nods sadly and points at the cracks in the floor, “I think that’s your best bet, this room wasn’t designed to handle that kind of weight.”
As Raijun pivots around the egg to the palace Myra pointed to he notices that under the egg seems to be the ruined form of an ornate egg holder. It appears it was designed for a much smaller egg. He also notices a scabbed patch of shell with cracks radiating out from it, as though maybe something has already broken out of this egg before. “Hey I think something got out of this. I mean look at this scarring.” As the group pivots to see the scarring he continues, “I think we should definitely destroy this or else something bigger will come out next time.”
“I trust your judgment,” Myra says softly.
Raijun’s eyebrows raise, “never heard that one before.” He takes his stone of the platinum heart and plants it in the floor thinking about what it is he wants. As he does he get’s a feeling from the crystal that there needs to be a reason for the destruction of the egg. Raijun envisions what could happen in his mind, the egg exploding into the whole city, destroying innocents and then escaping and doing evil in the name of Tiamat. There’s a pulling from the crystal as if it is questioning Raijun’s vision, thinking ‘that hasn’t happened’. And the crystal pulls him back to the moment illuminating the beings floating inside the egg, the crystal pulses asking why they are not innocent. What would be the justice in their destruction?
Raijun thinks to the stone, “can they be saved or are they just born to be evil monstrosities?”
The crystal warms in his hand and it seems to extend out in tendrils filling the cracks, growing and expanding.
“Can they be saved?” Raijun thinks again, and the crystal’s expansion stops.
The egg itself glows. The chains the group has felt along their bodies seem to weigh heavy. Trenchcoat forced to one knee before staggering back to standing. Raijun hears a voice in his mind, “Find the child that has awoken early. Absolve them if you can. The siblings hang in the balance.”
“The path is clear now,” Raijun nods to himself. He turns back to the group, “We have to find the one that got out and if we can absolve that one we can save the rest. And we don't have to destroy the baby chromatic dragons. If we don't do anything they will get corrupted and they will become a threat.”
“So it's nurture versus nature?” Hagren asks.
Raijun nods, “if we can absolve the one that already got out, maybe we can save them and,” he gestures back to the egg, “The rest of them.” He turns to Myra, “This is your chance to save as many chromatic dragons as you could probably see in your lifetime, so I don't know how you feel about it, but I want to give it a try if you do.”
“I'd rather not kill anything that could be innocent, if it could be saved…” Myra says quietly.
“And I am inclined to agree. I think the rock helped me shake off my killing tendencies.”
“Do you get any sense Raijun, if the remaining dragon is down here?” Myra asks gesturing broadly.
Raijun meditates with the crystal and he gets the feeling that a lot of time has passed and the child is in the larger world, not within these halls. To himself, “well, shit where the fuck am I going to find that?”
“Well there's always Jyindi” Myra offers, mostly to herself.
“Say what now?”
“In the Dragon Spine Mountains . It's the name that we found on the back of the puzzle piece. ” (See Everything Has A Price - Lion's Crest ) Myra blushes, “Sorry everyone doesn't just ponder the weird dragon things we get? Right. I'm going to go back this way.”
“No no! Wait hold on,” Raijun grabs her. “Do you think it could actually be there? Cause then it sounds like this is something that we should do because I don’t want to destroy this thing. And that’d be great cause I don’t need literal Tiamat coming after us, but if we could save them? That's different, you know.”
“Yeah, I mean there’s lots of evidence dragons at least were there. On top of the fact that I assume they were called dragon spine mountains for a reason, but there's no evidence that it's this one specifically. It was just a thought… I mean, there’s dragon iconography in many places… Something to consider though.”
“Well guys, I don't want to, you know, keep you in this room for too long. I think we know what we have to do now,” and he looks to crystal placed as a fulcrum in the floor. If the egg could not be saved, the crystal would expand and drop the egg into fathoms below. But if the judgment was found in favor of allowing the egg to live, the crystal would recede and ensure that the inhabitants of the room could be freed. Raijun places his hand on the crystal once more, “Thank you for guiding me the right way. I'll do what I can.”
As Myra retreats out to the main chamber she sees Justin trying to remove one of the I sections from the altar. Two clear tool marks around the gemstones, “You going to try to take all of those gems?”
“Hey, no one's worshiping this anytime soon. What's the worst that could happen?”
“You really want me to answer that?”
“It belong in a museum so that it can be appreciated by… enthusiasts.”
“Let's agree to disagree and you put down tools.”
“I wasn't making much progress anyway…” As he steps off the altar.
“Other door or back the way we came?” Myra asks. “It was blank, but you all seemed so eager.”
“I mean it can't get any worse than dragon God egg, you know?” Raijun offers moving towards the door.
Myra crosses her arms, “Was the dragon god egg actually worse than the burning fire, your limbs are being torn apart, and the thought you're falling indefinitely?”
“Well that was temporary and to me and I can deal with it, but this thing could you know, hurt other people, which I wouldn't be able to deal with.”
Myra looks kind of impressed as Raijun and Hagren go to the last closed door in the room. After a moment with the crowbar the door opens, beyond is a larger hallway that proceeds before ending in a caved-in section just barely showing the steps that would have led further beneath the abbey.
“Well, here you go,” Myra motions to Justin, “the next time you want to go down further here you know you have a way. Just bring something to clear it.”
“Thank you for the advice, very helpful,” Justin rolls his eyes.
Myra turns to Yamil, “Is your curiosity sated?”
“I mean this is much more interesting, they just had me locked in a room for… A few days, weeks, who knows? It's good to stretch my legs. I wish I had got to fight more of those spider things, but -”
“Ah well then, let me point you good sir, all the way straight south to another room of spider things where you may get your fill of hacking and slashing,” Myra says with a flourish gesturing down to the lower door.
Yamil smiles, “It's just bringing back memories of old days, that's all.”
“You fight spiders a lot?”
“Eh I fought a lot of things previously. They were always creatures from the mounds that would make their way up north towards the Carrefour. In the the old catacombs … There was this one time where there was a bunch of these rust monsters that were eating a lot of the all of the swords and armor of the trainees that we went to go send down and and get them, and it was funny 'cause, they all made it out alright, but they just were not wearing any pants and it was great,” Yamil laughs. “That's that's when the Scarabs switched to the leather.”
“Ah well. I mean, that makes perfect sense,” Myra smiles.
“I mean it looked great on my legs, but I preferred the metal. it didn't provide as much armor, you know?”
Yamil flexes his legs as Myra steals a look before quickly turning around back down the hall blushing. AS she quickly hurries back through the central room she calls over her shoulder, “I’m not touching the deathless one’s chamber, so spiders are next, prepare yourselves.” Myra turns to the spider on her shoulder, “Sarya are you preferring to stay in your current form or…?”
The group gathers Sarya returning to her elven shape as Adama rejoins the group. Myra turns to him, “Ah Adama,” she points at the southern door, “spiders eating rocks, good fireball potential? Right through this door gentleman, Hagren it appears to be stuck also again, just as note, spiders. ”
“They seem to be eating magic stones,” Sarya offers, “so probably magic?”
“You want me to try to talk to it?” Raijun offers, cracking his knuckles. Before opening the door Raijun yells through the door in a slow tone, “Hello little spider.”
“Who you calling a fucking spider?” Comes from the other side of the door.
“Oh I didn’t mean to assume I just, you know, you know eight legs... “
“Can you count? Who do you think you are? We’re eating. Do we come to your house and interrupt your food? Just because we're insectoids doesn't mean we don't have manners.”
“You're right, I could learn from you. I apologize for the transgressions. Can I come in?”
“I don't know, can you?”
“May I?”
“I'm a bug, not a cop.”
“Okay then,” He says loudly. He turns to the group, “These guys got weird customs.” Turning back to the door he pushes it open revealing a cavern. Perched atop a large set of crystals in the far side of the room, a set of crystal colors that you have not seen before a light blueish white silver and the bugs seem to be sitting there, between their exoskeleton he can see an almost ethereal light. Across the room on the other side is a black crystal.
“Woah, you're ugly,” the bug nearest Raijun says.
“My mom says I have a great personality.”
“Well, that doesn't do anything for your looks, even for someone that only has two legs. Wow. What are you doing down here? This is our turf.”
“I didn't mean to encroach on the turf wars, but if you have some enemies, just let me know I have no beef with you guys.”
“No, we just want to eat you’re coming in here interrupted our food.”
“Okay fair fair fair fair. I guess I'm trying to find a way out. We got stuck down here. We fell down like 40 flights of stairs equivalent and now I am - “
“Look at this guy trying to get out. There’s no out, this is here. And why’d you want to leave there’s so much food here,” gesturing to the rocks.
“I cannot digest crystals.”
“Well, that sounds like a personal problem.”
“Technically, it's kind of your problem too, right? 'cause you have to deal with my annoying ass bothering your dinner. So the faster that you can help me get out of here, the faster you don't have to deal with me and I'll. And point out where there's more crystals.
“Oh you know where all the crystals are?” The spider starts sniffing, “Hey buddy, you gotta you got any crystals on what is that I smell?”
Raijun shrugs, “I might but you know, kind of depends on the cooperativeness.”
The spider sniffs again, “No, no, this doesn't smell like… You got some fresh stuff on you. What else you got in that meat sack of yours?” Raijun reaches out and pulls out the hallucination gem. Two of the bugs move closer, “Oh shit, that smells good. Where’d you get that?”
“Raijun…?” Myra questions aiming her crossbow at the nearest one advancing.
“Hold on guys I got this.” Back to the spiders, “This actually comes from the far Eastern lands. It’s an import. Not usually found -”
“Well anything you brought in here is technically an import.”
“Well, isn't that better than eating the same old thing you've always eaten?”
“Give us the crystal.”
“Well, I'll give it to you if you help me.”
“What do you want?”
“I want to get out of here!”
“All right, I'll tell you where to go. Give me the crystal.”
They go back and forth a couple times negotiating Raijun’s sword and the group lives until Raijun chucks them the crystal. The first one comes up and munches the crystal immediately taking the spider out of commission. The other spiders demand more gifts approaching menacingly and as Raijun backs out of the room, “Do good things do just things.” He pinches his nose and turns to Myra, “I don’t see this going my way.”

Sands of Time

Myra turns to Adama, who promptly throws a fireball into the room incinerating the bugs. As the fireball explodes the light blue crystals flash and a pulse shoots out from them. An arcanic wave hits the group and those with magical tendencies feel some of their capabilities return. At the same time, as the wave hits Nari she begins to convulse uncontrollably.
Yamil gets to her first, grabbing her face to stabilize her, “Does somebody know what just happened?”
Myra rushes back beside them, “something happened between the fireball and the crystals. This looks like when she’s having a particularly painful vision. I don’t know, maybe it’s some kind of arcane overload?”
“So this is hurting her?” Raijun asks.
“They are not usually particularly pleasant.”
“Let me,” Yamil places his hands on either side of Nari’s head. As he does his head jolts back his the side of his body lights up. His eyes’ begin to glow as all the sand, dust, and dirt around him begins to swim in a growing tempest. As the winds pick up the room begins to fade away from you all, shifting and changing. As the light from Nari and now Yamil beings to intensify Myra goes to try to break them apart but they seem affixed together and he begins almost convulsing with her.
“Yamil stay with us!” Myra yells. The light from his eyes and face continue to glow and erupt the sand moving and shifting, the temperature of the room begins to fluctuate and change around them.
Sarya attempts to utilize the evocation scroll to restore Yamil and Nari to the way they were. There seems to be some effect but instead of her intentioned Myra sees an unfamiliar woman start to phase in and out of where Sarya stands. A headdress, armament, then it fades. Another pulse and there’s a beautiful woman, curly deep brown hair, tanned olive skin. She smiles holding Yamil as there’s a sound of laughter, there’s a shift and then Sarya is back.
Hagren attempts to brace himself and Trenchcoat against the pillar but the winds are too strong and soon all he can hear is the sound of distant screams, knee deep in sand, a large tower burning in the background. Myra and Sarya see Hagren see Hagren’s for disappear lost in the sand.
Raijun begins to move and as he does he suddenly realizes he’s not in the same room anymore. Moving forward he seems to be in a lobby, a table in front of him and other people dressed white with golden armaments and chest plates. A door bursts open and someone is exclaiming but his voice is drowned out by the sand. Raijun has a sudden feeling of needing to go outside but as he turns towards the door he’s suddenly outside. Then he’s back in with Myra and Sarya. Another step and he’s in front of the lobby, an explosion happening in the distance. A figure rushes pash and Raijun swears he knows the face but then it’s gone again back beneath the Abbey.
Adama focuses on his own scroll and tries to push a protective bubble out from him hoping to envelop the group in an anti-magic field. He clutches his chest and it pulsates and on the third pulse it expands to ten feet around him, a light blue bubble. In that moment there is an explosion and eruption as the storm seems to dissipate around the group Adama standing there, holding the field.
But as the dust settles and the group looks around they are no longer themselves beneath the abbey. The group finds themselves being accosted by a warm sun, the dry air shifting around them, the floor slowly being filled by the sand. As they look up they all see the tower, and a group of figures rushing towards them.
“Where the fuck are we?” Adama demands.
Myra and Sarya, in unison, “welcome to the Carrefour.”
“Wait we've been to the Carrefour, I don't remember that tower.”
The group looks out across the desert towards the solitary tower, smoke pluming up from it. “Well we’re in the desert and that’s all I can say definitively,” Myra pauses. “But if I had to guess, that's the Wheelhouse,” she points to the tower burning.
“So fire… what the fuck happened?” Adama asks.
“Is this now?” Sarya chimes in.
“I think that’s the right question,” Myra nods. “I don’t think it's a where I think it’s a when. I think we may finally learn… what happened to Yamil.”
“When do we think it is?” Adama asks.
“I’d guess about eleven years ago… On a very bad day.”
The unidentified group is about twenty yards away, Adama calls out, “Hello friend, hey, what the hell is going on?”
The lead one raises a hand. The group of individuals have white cloaks, golden armor across the chest, knee high boots. The one in front removes his hood and Myra is unable to suppress the tremor that goes through her as they are greeted by the shaky smile of Alsume Alshara, “Ah well, my brother said that reinforcements were coming. I'm guessing that is you.”

Epilogue

The storm rages but he knows where he is. He’s thought about this place every day. The difference in a decision has never left his mind. The single worst failure that has brought him here again and again. The nightmares that have fueled him moving forwards. Why return now? Seems that there is some connection brewing. Something that pulled that fragment of consciousness that he thought he lost eons ago, back to his single greatest failure. He looks and sees the outside of the cavern. He knows that they’ll make entry. That they'll be waiting before the group arrives. But it won't stop. The mad men are already down there plotting. It always happens the same way.
But maybe this time… Maybe there’s a reason he was brought back. Maybe this time, he can learn something new.

Report Date

05 Dec 2022