Arkomir writes...
During the night, my dreams are jumbled but toward the end, I receive a visitation from
Corellon in their numerous forms. I am impatient to make the right connections on our investigations, and they reassure me that I am. They reassure me that i am on the right path and doing their work to their liking.
We all wake early, have breakfast and then leave to head down to the townhouse to see the island folk.
Krael and
Durgash greet us at the door along with
Elena Swiftfoot and they go and get
Thrain Stoneforge for us. We hand over some coin for the island folk to use to get them back on their feet. We then bid him goodbye and will see him at the docks later this morning.
Mirellion comes to Belhaim
Turning back to head to the tower I notice something in the Triways. Three distinct areas of mist appear and shimmer at ground level before coming together and coalescing into three people. They are; a female
Tiefling in warm travelling clothes, a well armoured human man and an elven woman with long pale brown hair.
Dharra Boulderfoot sends a quick message to Moulten who responds and says he is on his way. The three folk start moving toward us or the tower at the very least. As we get closer we notice that the elven woman has two small stones orbiting her head and she introduces herself as
Aleesia Dawnseeker and she is from
Duchy of Mirellion.
Isadora Giordano has given Alessia some information about us.
Esward Moulton and his entourage come out of the tower and head over to meet Alessia as well. We are invited into the tower with everyone to continue this discussion. Alessia kicks off discussions with greetings from the
Duchy of Mirellion. She says that it has become known that
Glade's Tower has been rediscovered and she is here to purchase the tower. The
Duchy of Mirellion think that the tower may contain dangerous materials and artefacts that need to be protected. After some discussion, she agrees to come with us to the island to at least investigate. I put forward a proposal that we all protect the island and the tower and perhaps a small delegation from Mirellion could move to the island. As we show Alessia around
Melody’s tomb and
Bella’s tomb, she tells us the story of Glade and Mirellion’s connection. Mirellion is named for the
Mirellia, The Eternal Duchess, Glade’s first apprentice. She and Glade and a group of likeminded people fought a dragon and then spent time in the unclaimed lands in the east before heading south. She founded the city of Mirellia in 3105, and is still alive. She and Glade had fallings out over time, but she still speaks of Glade fondly, albeit rarely.
On our way back to the docks, Dharra plays some of Melody’s songs for Alessia, who is quite taken by these songs. Thomas and Syl have been hired again for today to transport us across to the island and they drop us at the same spot they picked us up from yesterday. We disembark and make our way up to the settlement and the tower. We show them the reliquary on the way and Alessia notices that I am drawn to the ring. She thinks it may be the ring of Jack of the Vanguard. This area is one she would be keen to help guard.
At the talking door, we hear some of the same words from before but also:
Scion
As we wander around the tower, every now and then Alessia just stops and takes it all in. Upstairs in the lab we show her the glass sphere we found. She takes the sphere and speaks the elven word for ‘show'. The lab and the tower disappear behind a veil and we see.
There is a campfire in front of us with a vast array of different species sat around. All of thos e gathered are in various states of disarray. A transcendent woman walks across the scene and appears to glow by herself. She wears faded and battered armour and it’s hard to not like her; this is Bella. She reaches over and takes a bowl from a young gnomish girl saying she can play something for us. The gnome picks up a lute and begins to play ‘Drops Become a Wave’. The performer is Melody. At the end of the song - the vision stops.
Hidden Things Found
We finish showing her all of the rest of the sections of the tower, including the pictures. Alessia then wants to cast a spell to show hidden things and wants us with herand says that everyone else should remain downstairs in the meantime. We stay with Alessia and we follow her into the lab. We feel a warmth of magic in this room as she casts. She confirms that all the unshattered glass is Glade glass. She walks out into the library and confirms that the tower exists in this plane and the ethereal plane. She goes up to the top level and looks at the pictures and she says that the pictures could be active but are currently dormant. She sees a keyhole in the wall that we cannot see, but can be opened with the key. We use the key that Fafnir found to open this secret room.
In this circular room, the all of the pictures are here and complete and each of them have three buttons or toggles next to them. Playing around with toggles, we can get a live feed of the view. We look for the picture we have not currently seen and it is a view of a small meeting chamber. There are lines of people standing on a carpet. Up the end is a swarthy man with dark hair sitting in a chair listening to the assembled folks. Beside him is a woman, quite tall and quite strong. Switching to live feed, the room seems expanded but the view is off to one side. The chairs are now thrones with a pair of statues behind them. Isadora is speaking to a man seated on the throne. This is a live view into the throne room at Port Zaram.
Looking at the Dwarven view we dont know, we switch it to live feed. The room changes to have a large table with a number of dwarves milling about. The table is heavily textured like a reflief map and the very centre of the relief map is a valley painted red. Our best guess as to this feed would be Kaz Urul.
Other things in this room include (but not limited to):
- Between some of the pictures are some sizeable wine racks.
- A couple of bookcases with many books.
- On one of the bookcases, is a rack with multiple glass spheres.
- Next to those are three glass models of this tower.
- A draftsmans table with a workbook pushed to one side.
- On a sheet of paper is a sketch of the golems from downstairs.
- A coat rack with a green cloak and a simple pair of boots.
- On a rack next to that is a set of green dragonscale armour bigger than would fit me.
- Next to the cloak are a bunch of leather straps that would be a book holster.
- A small chest to one side with curved metal on it.
- Behind this is another stone and steel golem.
We agree that this needs to be protected collaboratively. We continue to investigate this extra-dimensional place and a fair bit of stuff in this room glows with magic (spheres, models, boots and cloak, scrolls, golem). Dharra opens the chest in this room. She moves aside the piece of metal which is incredibly light, possibly adamantine that may be a not quite finished female breastplate. Inside the chest we find a sheaf of papers, a series of other plates of metal, more adamantine and several pieces of
Dweomatite. We let the folks downstairs know that we will be a bit longer investigating things here. Aleesia offers us, or
Belhaim, 15,000 GP for the books alone in this tower. We counter by saying that these books should be shared, not owned. I also offer that we would be happy to plead our case to the duchess if need be. A lengthy discussion of the establishment of an embassy and the protections of the tower ensues. We are not keen to remove anything from the tower per se, as this would dilute and change Glade's connection and story. Aleesia seems happy with our responses and will, it seems, advocate for that as well. However, a longer discussion will need to take place between her and Moulten.
Dharra asks about the Mirellion embassy in
Steinwark. I ask about
Lok, as we dont ofetn hear stories about him. Aleesia says he is a more straightforward character and he was more aligned with justice and what Bella needed him to do. There are stories of love and longing between he and Bella but it appears he put others before himself maybe at the defeat of his own story. There are stories that he proposed to Bella on more than one occasion, but no story of them being wed exists. He left Belhaim after her death and then his story stops. As a faithful servant of
Bahamut, maybe he was granted favour by his god at the end. He seems like a gracious and humble servant who was happy to have the story be about others and less about him. The dragonscale armour may have been used by Lok in the battle with Bikoreth.
Aleesia is taking stock of the books on the bookshelves in here. Dharra has a look through some of the non-magical books on the shelves, but doesn't find much. She does find something of interest however with a marking of an outline of a raven. It looks like a spellbook and Dharra struggles to glean any knowledge from it. The words Shadowfell, Raven Queen, soul and passage stick out though. There is a crumpled piece of paper at the back which seems like a diary entry from Glade to a long dead Melody. She also finds a book with details about the Drift Empire, however the details elude her. She asks Aleesia and she confirms it is written in Drift, which she cannot read unfortunately.
The next book she finds looks like it is written in Elven which she hands to me. I confirm that it is in an older version of elven and the first page reads, "As best I can Recall". The dedication is to Melody and itt is Glade's recollection of Melody's lyrics. I read the first page of Lyrics to Dharra as she copies it down. It is a song called 'Lady of Freedom' about Bella.
We also find a ledger of things to and fro from the mine as well as a book on the various comings and goings of Glade's apprentices. It makes mention of an Apprentices House, which may be one of the overgrown buildings in the garden downstairs. Mirella would have stayed here in that residence for a time. We find more books written in Drift and some Elven story books. There are some books about the gods but none that are of any real note. Dharra investigates the dragonscale armour and tells us the story of its manufacture. She sees the way in which the scales were harvested and also the making of the armour. She then sees the armour being put on to a tall human who then turns and says 'Lets go kill this thing!' That is definitely
Lukas, who is also Lok it would seem. She sends a message to him but it fails to garner a reply.
Dharra spends some time looking at the spheres. She gets more visions like the one we have already seen. One of the temple at
Oxenhalt and the marriage of
Brak Steelfist and Hiede, officiated by Bella. Another of a dwelling of some sort and an older Brak, holding a baby, introducing Brakia. One of Glades' marriage to Evarial in a forest with tall opalescent towers, Bella enters with a nervous looking Glade and officiates his marriage. Another shows a sunset and Bella's memorial, with lines of people coming to visit it and throwing broken chains in tribute, including elves and dwarves. In the last image, we hear Lukas' voice say that he will sit here a while longer.
A plan is put in place for us to stay on the island tonight with
Antonio of Mirellion and
Luna of Mirellion to stand guard. We will take some more time and copy the book of Melody's lyrics. In the meantime, Aleesia will start negotiations with
Esward Moulton about what is to be done next. In catching up with Moulten and other folk,
Aleif Infernus has been making some notes about the island and its capacity and so forth.
Kaelin Thatch has been weeding a patch nearby the tower and already appears to be a functional vegie patch. The overgrowth near the wall and the two ruined structures is gone as well.
Thrain Stoneforge tells us he will head back Belhaim today, and will get
Brom Coppervein to order things from
Darin's Fall. He will start work on the tower and the docks as a priority.
Dharra walks out side of the tower to contact Lukas/Lok again. The spells sends but something stops or swallows it. She then asks
Funi "The Answer" Umoweahl what might be up with that. She replies that spells and wards could be blocking it at the other end. Funi then uses the sending stone to send another message. She and
Pozohr The Flame had a chat and she got the stone back and she is chatting with
Kezahr tomorrow. We set ourselves up on the island in the guest suites, organise a watch and settle in for a night.
In the library, we look a bit more at the books. The books about the Gods appear to be Glade’s musings about them. The books on Alchemy are much the same, as are the books on Golems. There are two books here that appear to magical: The Manual of Bodily Health and The Tome of Undersatanding. I flick through these books and try to glean some things but both of these books would take a while to read. As I start to read the first book, the magic within the book starts to activate. As I read the text shifts to Elven.
I look at the models of the Tower. They are made of Glade Glass, but not the same as some of the other examples we have seen. They have Conjuration magic attached to them. Upon investigation, Dharra sees a representation of the teleportation Circle and a drop of powerful magic. These might be a way to travel back to the tower without needing to cast that particular spell. The scrolls within this room are mainly spell scrolls. The desk, is just that, and looks like a workdesk, with workings for the making of the golems. The room itself looks like Glade just left one day and did not return.
We also take the time to go down to the settlement and look at the chest we found and never opened. Upon opening it we find a bunch of coin, ingots of precious and base metals, a couple of rough chunks of dweomatite, some small nuggets or seams of precious metal, some semi-precious stones and an amulet with the symbol of
Gruumsh. We grab the dweomatite and the put the symbol of Gruumsh into the bag of holding for destruction at a later stage. The rest of the metals and stones we leave in the chest and place in the magma forge. We take the money to give to Holly to spend on the repairs to the island.
Over the intervening days much more is discovered and repairs start on the tower.
Kaelin Thatch continues to make progress on the clean up of the grounds around the tower and a working vegetable patch is created. I finish reading the Manual of Bodily Health. Dharra busies herself with the book of Melody's lyriucs and learning as much as we can about the The Cleansing Wave from the books in the Tower. As many of the books that make sense to us are read and discovered as well. Dharra takes some time to identify a number of the objects that we have discovered over the course of exploring the island.
Firtly, she looks at Melody’s Lyrics Book. She sees an image of Glade sitting at a desk in the Belhaim tower patting a grey-green pseudodragon and she creates an image of this to show me. Next she focuses on the small statue of Evarial encased in Glade glass. She gets a very strong magical resonance from this object which is enhanced by the emotional resonance attached to it by the creator. She sees Glade forming the statue in the glassworks downstairs and he appears a bit older and as he sprinkles something over the glass as he incants a spell. He takes the glass outside and, holding it up to Evariel as she stands in front of the tower, the image is transferred.
Lastly, she touches the Dragon Skull in Melody’s Tomb. This image almost gives Dharra a headache as it is laced with strong emotion and memory. She sees the story of this dragon’s life as it grows larger and stronger and its battle with the Cleansing Wave that brings about its downfall. She sees Bella with wings outstretched, Glade incanting, Brak charging and Lok, wearing the dragonscale armour, strides forward and shoots.
We divide our time between the island and the Chandlerveil for the next few days, and stay on the island for a couple of this e nights as exploration or reading goes late into the day. During these nights we forge more of a friendship with Thrain and Kaelin in particular, but all of the
Steelfist Mine Captives become close friends.
We continue to visit the
Steelfist Mine and during these visits I continue to pray to Corellon to strengthen not only my devotion to them, but to steel myslef for getting rid of the symbol of Gruumsh.
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