Lost Lore 6: Stirring the Hornet's Nest - Grace of Sandor Game
General Summary
Upon returning to Frial, Ospher and I set about on some long overdue tasks; we had great need to secure Manacite supply, I wanted to get my shield worked on, and gain access to Sandor's divine rites that the High Priest in the Kreastos' surviving temple had on hand.
Founder's week this week granted us a bottle of wine an assortment of Founder's cakes (cherry and apricot!) and a few masks depicting gods, Ospher got Nisaba and I got Tatayne! We traded immediately. We were given a couple of boxes too, I opened mine and got a small pack with 4 manacite crystals, Ospher got a iron cookpot, cooking utensils and another bottle of fine wine.
At the Temple to Sandor, the High Priest, Shepherd, said that to the south of town, there is an old guard house/beacon light dedicated to the Guardian of Tairos himself, and if we could get the beacon lit, he would see it as a sign that Sandor favors our actions and will allow me access to the paladin's and cleric's rites. It's well outside the patrolled territory by Frial, but still in the plains so it won't be nearly as treacherous our prior travels.
Captain Farley's contact, the armorer Barabus Soto was very willing to place Vail's symbol upon my shield and affix it there for a mere 10 GP and minimal questions asked. I presume this inclination to silence will persist if a missing brick from the council chambers becomes more widely discussed.
We had heard talk of a curio shoppe on the south end of Frial called Tucker Street Apothecary, and went to see for ourselves if it was going to be a reasonable source of manacite. The shop was open when we arrived and the keep, Bianca Loame, seemed to have a project she was working in the back room. She had a few pieces of Manacite and an off device she built herself that is able to recharge itself each day, though it will administer a shock to the user. She said she was working on other things as well and we could check back in with her later for more. She also let us in that she'd been to the Moon, and that she'd like to get back there at some point in the future, and if we wanted to help her with that, she would appreciate it. I mentioned that we knew of a lab with a working gate that she could examine at a later date, but couldn't be sure if we could give her any of the pieces of the device itself until we got the threat around it neutralized as well. She was VERY pleased to hear that and offered us a magical amulet (a clockwork amulet) to ingratiate herself with us further when we come to that time.
We rode out of town at this point, and began our trek southward. In the early evening before sunset, after encountering no one on the road, we came across a gruesome scene, a caravan of a couple wagons and people are taking up the road. We cautiously approach after assessing the possibility of a trap, and see that they're likely farmers from the peasant lands of Melanthris. A younger man of elven descent met us as we came up and sought medical assistance from us. They described three monsters which Ospher immediately identified as harpies. The young man, armed with a sickle and a symbol of Correllon Lathander, said they made off with his sister, though he cried out to Correllon and was able to drive off the ones that didn't take his sister. He introduced himself as Crisnos, and his missing sister as Nirue.
At his questioning, we told him and his kinfolk that we were planning on traveling to the Beacon to Sandor, which they said they passed by on the way here, and observed campfires and evidence of people camped out there. Crisnos, said he had to go after his sister, which we advised against, but with the trip to Frial being another half day's travel, he needed to leave now to save her. We agreed to go with him, since he knew which direction they went in, but we didn't promise we could definitely save her. We set off after tending the wounds of some of his kin, grabbed one of the horses from a destroyed wagon, and he gave us a loaf of elven bread (very cinnamon flavor!).
He was interested in what we were up to, and we told him we're interested in ancient magics and knowledge, and he tried to press us into going to Melanthris to see ancient churches and sites of power, where things never fell to ruin. We got to an area where a few hills likely gave the harpies vantage to hunt their prey, and one hill in particular appeared out of sorts with the way the wind was blowing about. I pointed this out to Ospher and Crisnos and we turned towards that and passed through some sort of invisible barrier surrounding it that hid a massive ancient dead-ish tree that was almost decorated in corpses, skeltal remains and viscera. At the base of the tree, almost sculpted out of the tree itself was a hut that had light within and distant music and haunting melodies. We tied up the horses and approached on foot.
Sneaking up, we heard the music a little more clearly, and observed some of the crows inhabiting the tree looked as if they had their brains removed and replaced with a large eye that moved about in their skull. We also saw a harpy in the trees, and fearing my mail would attract it's attention to us, I sent Ospher and Crisnos ahead while I observed it to make sure it wasn't going to attack. As they approached the door of the hut, I saw them both go slack, drop their guard and just start walking up to the door, at which point I knew that something had gone wrong for them. I started running up the hill after them and a harpy that was waiting in the branches immediately swooped in to intercept me. Not today you winged cannibals.
Ospher shook himself clear from the enchantment while I contended with one and just as he and I finished it, two more came crashing in to attack. Crisnos proved himself true and holding a holy symbol of Correllon, he channeled a Sacred Flame to attack one of them. It knocked him out shortly afterwards, and Ospher's wand of Fear chased them off immediately. We tended to Crisnos and entered the hut cautiously to find a small bed, a bubbling cauldron, a ramshackle bookshelf and no one present. We heard a faint music in the room but couldn't ascertain where it was specifically coming from. I had the idea at this point to play the fae song on the pan pipes that Tarre taught us and a hideous old crone seemed to appear from nowhere, clutching an unconscious Nirue with a dagger and she questioned us in their tongue. We stared at her simultaneously blankly and threateningly, and she then addressed us in common.
In the course of conversation we determined that she captured Nirue to use as a sacrificial offering to The Autumn King, but was willing to bargain with us once I mentioned that I had heard that Ghelf artifacts were littered about these lands from her Chamberlain, Addison. She agreed that she would give us time and not harm "the sacrifice" until we return with a relic for her to earn a position in the Autumn court. After leaving, we directed Crisnos to return to his family and meet us in Frial while he searches for a lead at the library there.
We resume our trek south with no more encounters until we get to the ancient beacon, the aptly named Grace of Sandor, monolithic, covered in moss, with the top floor collapsed in on itself. We noticed the people there seemed to be loosely organzied and had set up a watch around the tower itself. We approached a guard and he refused to let us through since I told him I wasn't certain I had pure blood (ha!) and he openly sneered at Ospher's heritage. We pulled back to reconnoiter the area and come up with a plan to get inside. Out of the 20-ish people there, 3 of them were fully mailed Lockland knights, and the rest seemed to be persons the knights had pressed into "holy service." The knights themselves seemed to be attempting to gain entry to the tower by beating the door down, though we could tell even in the firelight at a distance that there was a magical rune barring their way in. I went to the field to curry favor with some poisonous snakes, while Ospher wheeled around the camp perimeter to get to their horse carriages in order to sow chaos. He extinguished the campfire with a ray of frost, used lamp oil from their stores to coat a carriage in flammables and then after sneaking a bit off, set that one aflame.
In the darkness, the knight's tenuous order enforced among their fellow "Sandor"-ites shattered. I met up with Ospher in the madness and we ascertained the nature of the rune on the door, it appeared to be an elvish binding rune to contain planar creatures with the effect of holding the portal fast against all attempts of entry. We looked up the tower and observed a few windows that would gain us entry and Ospher used his Catapult spell to launch our grappling hook up through there. I pushed Ospher ahead and went up behind him, taking an arrow shot from an observant archer, though the rest of the camp didn't quite have their chaos in order to stop us. We hauled the rope up behind us instead of inciting further anger and took stock of the ancient tower.
The window brought us in on the staircase itself since it was a little bit up the tower, the stiarcase spirals all the way down to the bottom and the top of the tower, with no real rooms besides the one at the bottom and the beacon at the top. We head up the stairs, noticing another seal on the door at the top, we were greeted by an animated shadow on that said it's name is Trackles and it is a lesser Angel of Sandor that was trapped here by Elves in ages past (before the Queen's rebuke). Supposedly their god's (Corellon) jealousy inspired them to trap him and another more powerful angel here named Therapher. After a bit of discussion about the Locklanders, he coalesced into a human shaped shadow, stating the land is poison and he couldn't muster any further manifestation. Neither Ospher nor I had heard of either of these angels, but he petitioned us to set him and Therapher free if possible to allow them to draw actual power again to once again do Sandor's bidding.
After attempting to beckon Sandor to undo the seal to no avail, and offering Trackles some of the Sandor manacite we found in Wagner Abby, he said that perhaps a sacrifice of one of the Locklanders would provide Therapher enough power to tear down the seal. We realized at this point the angel was either corrupted or attempting to trick us, we went back down to the base of the tower to rummage about the place for goods and then went to a window near the top of the tower and use Ospher's magehand to set us a new grappling point to hoist ourselves to the roof. On the roof, we observed that my snakes had killed three of the recruits and the camp below was still in chaos.
Half of the roof is collapsed and the former beacon housing is a spherical glass shape surrounded by columns and what used to be a furnace. The beacon itself had 4 seals carved into the glass itself. I helped Ospher up shortly thereafter, and we looked about the top and Trackles was able to come up to the tower's top as well, he claimed the beacon itself is where Therapher was bound by the elves. The carvings prevented me from casting a sacred flame into the furnace, and I noticed Trackles was upset by this. Ospher started looking around and we noticed a large break in the floor to the structure supporting the top and within had been crammed a number of bodies and bones covered in bite marks and equipment. I took a look and saw immediately that these elvish bones were clad in the vestments of Corellon and Sandor's book and had likely been crammed in here after these "angels" were captured. Trackless started losing his cool and gave up the act at this point, so I hit him with a sacred flame and his shadow disguise burned away revealing a squat monster, with draconic wings with a brutal skeletal tail and covered in bony spines and red eyes. I recognized him as a devil from hell, a spinagon.
He jumped atop my shield to try to kill me and shot Ospher with his spines, I called my spiritual weapon into being and Ospher attacked him with lightning breath since it was immune to fire, posion and would shrug off cold while dodging the spines. His frustration got the better of him and we quickly wore him down, at which point I used Nisaba's power to open the rent wider so we could get down into the structure easier, though I did have to break a lot of the bones there. We recovered the two books, though they're in elvish, and I was able to rig together the 10 candles on my person in order for the light to sustain for about a day's time from the beacon.
As we lit the beacon, we could hear a soft voice filter the room beckoning us to bring it blood and erase the runes. Ospher then cast Feather Fall on us and we jumped from the tower to a side the Locklanders weren't gathered on and then got back to our steeds to start the long trek back to Frial. After we arrived back, we went to to the Temple of Sandor to get our book from Shepherd and he got weird with us very briefly. He was surprised we made it back and were successful, and slightly disappointed as well.
We backed ourselves into a corner to try and rescue Nirue. Hopefully Corellon can bless Crisnos' efforts cause Nisaba doesn't really have a good bead on a start to save the young lady.
Character(s) interacted with
Crisnos - An elven acolyte of Correllon Lathander, searching for his sister who was taken as hostage in the plains south of frial at the direction of...
Granny Illsemine - A Fae Hag, who hoped that a blood sacrifice would be enough to buy her entrance to the Court of the Autumn King
Trackles - A Devil masquerading as a trapped angel within the Grace of Sandor. He and his master...
Theraphur - A planar being of some power that was locked here by Elven followers of Sandor in ages past. Bound within the beacon jar itself and within the structure of the tower by their sacrifice, we let him to rot after killing his sole minion.
Shepherd - The high priest of the Frial sect of Sandor. After completing his quest, he agreed to "loan" me the book I wanted from their library. But he could not conceal his disappointment at our success, though didn't appear to know about the Locklanders. Demonic influence, power craven, in the sway of the Locklander's ideology or otherwise, he is someone to be wary of.
Granny Illsemine - A Fae Hag, who hoped that a blood sacrifice would be enough to buy her entrance to the Court of the Autumn King
Trackles - A Devil masquerading as a trapped angel within the Grace of Sandor. He and his master...
Theraphur - A planar being of some power that was locked here by Elven followers of Sandor in ages past. Bound within the beacon jar itself and within the structure of the tower by their sacrifice, we let him to rot after killing his sole minion.
Shepherd - The high priest of the Frial sect of Sandor. After completing his quest, he agreed to "loan" me the book I wanted from their library. But he could not conceal his disappointment at our success, though didn't appear to know about the Locklanders. Demonic influence, power craven, in the sway of the Locklander's ideology or otherwise, he is someone to be wary of.
"If you'll uphold your end of the bargain, I'll uphold mine and the girl's life will be preserved."
"Untouched, uncorrupted, untortured."
"Uneaten."
"You have my word. The words of Granny Illsemine can be trusted. I don't want to hurt the girl, I just want to be part of the King's Court."
"Hello good sir, we're here to camp at the tower for the evening, if that's ok?"
"Absolutely not, this is not a place for you."
"Give me the book."
"As was promised. Tell me what you saw."
"A murder of Locklanders."
"There may be a way to break the seal. Perhaps Therapher can be awakened and destroy the seal from his end. He would need and act of faith that our lord Sandor would truly notice. Perhaps, down below. Those terrible non-believers, those awful men that twist his words. Perhaps a sacrifice of one of them, perhaps a sacrifice of one of their warrior priests. The blood of someone who would twist the words of the lord of light would wash away these symbols."
"I don't know if you're gonna believe this or not, but I've been to the moon."
"Digby is probably, on the subject of flexibility, one of the most inflexible people I've ever met, regarding the ownership of things he believes belongs to him."
"Horrible things, big wing, large claws and faces like women. They cackled and laughed as they attacked, and screeched and lured people into the field with songs. It was a nightmare!"
"You know the greeting? You don't look of us. You don't smell of fae."
"The shadow court is no more, I need him to accept me. We won't be alone anymore."
"Segravia's death would earn me a place as Jaspar's consort!"
"The ancestors inside, they must be upset with us!"
"Thank you for coming, may I ask why you have come so far?"
"We've come to pay homage to Sandor."
"He's here, he can feel you! I am his servant, one of his angels."
"The road to Lockland is lined by your people's skeletons." "What! Really?"
"Interesting stuff down there Trackless, eh?"
"I don't think you can help at all."
"Yeah you're probably right. What are you going to do about that!"
"Bring blood for him! Bring blood for my god!"
"Nisaba will see you home shortly!"
