Session 52 - Letters from Kathend Irthos

General Summary

Note’s in Tertia’s pack: (1) “For Mettia?” scribbled in the margin:

We have entered the hidden stronghold of the Titan-worshippers. I assumed our magical ritual would reveal the gates of the ancient city of Kathend Irthos. Instead we were transported to a large hall. Immense - approximately a stadium in length and in width - and as tall as one of our temples. I don’t know for certain which of the peoples built this structure, nor where within the city it resides, but my guess would be the vanished peoples described as “dragonborn”, since Kathend Irthos was their capital city. We have seen no drawings of them, but there is some suggestion they were man-sized, not dragon-sized. This place is not large enough for dragons themselves to comfortably gather, assuming they every would. What I first thought was an entrance chamber is not. It prevents easy access to the rest of the city. Presumably this was not how the city of Kathend Irthos functioned before it was hidden (how terrible for trade that would be!). I think they must now constrain the ingress portal so that they can control those who enter. It may be a “temple”, as there is a statue of the Titaness Kereska and an alter before it. A raised gallery runs around the three sides opposing the altar, with two additional altars below that gallery. The walls above and below this gallery are set with scroll racks, which at a cursory glance are genealogical charts for the lineages of this ancient civilization - written in slaadi and draconic. In the four corners of the room, and in two additional chambers which lead off from the main, are orbs of colored lights that function as portals to other spaces. So in addition to a place of worship and a records hall, this space acts as….a centralized location for magical transportation? Temple, magical crossroads and hall of records, in one. Color and symmetry are valued by the builders of this place, I think. For example, behind the altar are walls of colored flame - one matching each orb. These flames block access to a final white portal orb that is larger and brighter than the rest. Each colored wall can be disabled by dousing the flames of a brazier (same color!), accessible through the same (!) colored portal. Very succinct. (How close the linked location is is unknown, as each location is inaccessible except from the portal.) Each brazier is guarded by a different member species of the coalition - fish, lizard, snake, etc. The central temple was occupied only by these toad-like slaadi. There were but two when we entered - one a large hulking blue monster, the other an almost waifish gray tadpole. Yes, color must be essential to these peoples, perhaps even sacred! What I have seen and been told is that a blue toad is always large. A gray toad is always small and quick. There are also large-ish red and small green. Only the gray and green appear to be capable of magics, which sadly involves summoning more of their kind! Oh, but they all grin. Even in battle. Horrifying. I will not bore you with details of that butchery. We all lived. This room and records indicate great antiquity, so does it then follow that the tight cooperation of these species is ancient as well, predating their enmity for Roma? If so…that has implications. We know that the slaadi use living hosts to reproduce, a more gruesome process than simply killing to feed one’s young. It likely requires enslavement of other vassal states in large scale. Was this the role of humans before Roma brought this empire down? Or did slaadi use their allies? If these slaadi were always allies of the kingdom that Maagog led, could his kingdom truly have been a righteous one? Some of these titans appear to value good deeds and right thoughts, but if these slaadi were always their allies (masters?), I think the final results would still have been foul. And so no quarter could have been given by our ancestors.

(2)

With no way to send letters, I suppose I must write these things to myself. If I survive the coming battle I should like to write a treatise on practical and tactical uses of magic in military operations. Circled three times: DO NOT ENGAGE UNTIL CASTERS GIVE A SIGNAL. Use of powerful magics in battle requires intelligent timing. Archers and casters are natural allies. Infantry is a less natural fit. Hassan used a spell to turn the floor to mud, which would have been a disaster if Bandua and I had rushed to engage the slaadi. Hassan was later forced to include me in a powerful spell that slows time of a crowd of people, because I had rushed to engage them. Kleeck should not have had to waste his divine gifts to remove that spell from me. (I thought I saw a chance to use Jupiter’s Javelin to great effect, but in the economy of magical might, it was too great a cost.) Sending infantry in AFTER to engage such slowed enemies is an exceptionally devastating approach. Timing timing timing. I often bristle when Hassan shouts out instructions like a commander, but the boy has a mind and eye for tactics. When your friend is an intelligent siege weapon…listen to the siege weapon. NOTE: Rushing to engage slaadi is ALWAYS a bad idea. The risk of contracting the “create-infant-slaadi” disease is enough to convert every soldier to an archer. While I am happy to draw fire away from my less armored companions, I’ll confess that is not why I rushed in. It was pure glory seeking. I am old enough to be a grandmother, I should know better. Alas, with Minerva’s sword that lends me greater skill and these gauntlets that make my blows as powerful as a goliath’s, I have in my near-dotage at last found battle rapture. And several times now I have felt … at the edge of … something. An exquisite dark song. At first I thought it was the Goddess herself, that I was touching what Kleeck does when he speaks with Apollo. But after several near-touches, this feels more like that silent space in my mind that was left behind after the amethystium dragon spoke to me. As though that inner stillness, that I have speared the minds of others with, wishes to fill my heart and wreath my arms and travel the length of my sword to still the hearts of my enemies. Ach, I am rambling like a student exploring a talent for bad poetry. This is why i write letters and do not keep a journal - there is no audience to check my maudlin ramblings!