Narrative

Day 16 began on Saturday, 31st Dec. The party went to town hall to see Rewi Lovelace, a gnome whose room was very messy. Rewi pulled an obsidian raven from a drawer and called it Errol, though the note says “but not really.” The party said the Justicar was causing more problems than she solved and requested further evocation spells. Rewi was thinking about how to enhance the pulley system at the cliffs.

At 10:00 the party retrieved the horses and cart and headed earthwise. They noted Invil Newhaven four miles earthwise and Stonebrook three miles earthfire wise. Continuing toward Newhaven, the land became drier and seemed to be at the edge of the salted area. At noon they stopped at a well, apparently the only freshwater [area?] around. Other wells had been boarded up because the water was bad. The mayor ran a farm and kept chickens. The party filled their waterskins. The road out of Newhaven was in disrepair, and outside town the grass dried up again. Newhaven’s good water appeared to be an anomaly. There were not many birds.

The party found nothing around to indicate a laboratory at first. The obsidian raven appeared and suggested they meet with the Justicar and work together. It wanted their location, but someone said, “don’t give it to him.” The raven flew back to Seaward. The party kept going until they were ten miles away and one mile from the barrier. They found charred earth from the last few days, a campfire, and rations, possibly cultish. Tracks showed five or six people had camped there and seemed to be searching for something. The tracks led toward the barrier, then stopped. The party saw acid corrosion and blood speckles that looked as though they had been swept over. The notes distinguish black dragons as acid and green dragons as mist.

Geldrin checked the compass and found a weakish signal. The party followed it about thirty feet down and saw purple. They found ten-foot stone walls with a door. The password “Spinal” opened it. Inside was a chamber with two columns in dwarf form guarding a door, and “Spinal” opened that door as well. A boxed note records Brutor as an abjuration wizard of Tor, associated with rocks.

The party went left down a corridor and entered a large room with stone benches and a lecture area seating twenty to thirty people. There was a jagged rock-man statue representing Tor, with “Tor Protects” written beneath it. There was no visible disturbance in the dust. A book on a lectern was about Tor and written in ancient Dwarven. Across the corridor was a room of the same size containing only one teleportation circle. Geldrin copied the rune number. Dirk found fairly recent footprints that had been deliberately covered. They led down the corridor and had no returning prints, suggesting someone might still be inside. The footprints led to a closed door. A ruby in a dwarf face released chains that opened the door. Dirk used his crowbar to hold both chains and keep the door open. Geldrin set an alarm on the hatch and teleportation circle.

The party entered another door, the second left from the hatch, and found purple light coming from the room. Paperwork on the walls showed pylons and tower structures. A bubble of shield energy floated in the middle, with a scale model of the Penta City states and a suspended globe of elements at each compass point. A crossed-out note says there is a city fire airwise of Lake Azure, halfway between the lake and Aegis-on-Sands. The model showed no sign of the prisons or laboratories, and the elements did not move.

The teleportation circle activated. The party retrieved the crowbar and hid in the diorama room. One person came out, went to the dwarf-face door, then entered the door opposite them. He was human, wearing desert-style robes with an Arabic look and piercing blue eyes. He said he did not work for the black dragon. He had found several circles and described himself as a collector of magical trinkets. The party made a deal with him: he would get all the coin, gold, and silver; the party would get first pick of treasure; he would get the next pick; then the party would get three other picks; and the rest would be split evenly. This person was later identified as Pythus Aleyvarus, a blue dragon.

In the lounge, a scepter seemed out of place. Dirk took it, setting off an alarm. All doors became arcane locked. The party went back through the dwarf-face door. A mouth appeared and told them the traps were active. In the first room, ten skittles stood at the end of a lane, with a power table and a darts board holding three darts in the 20. The poker table was magical, and the whole room radiated magic. The next door opened into an apparently empty room. The next door triggered a silence spell, and the room was full of rows and rows of crystal balls, later understood as memories. In the lounge, they found a hidden box, and the silence spell stopped. They returned to the crystal ball room.

The crystal balls revealed many memories. One showed goliaths helping build the grand towers. The hall with the most scratched plinth held a memory filled with dread and the smell of acid: a house scarred by acid and a dwarf skeleton. Another grand towers hall showed four people around a teleportation circle: a human male, an elven female, a human female very similar to the elf, and someone with reef jewellery and a stag design on a dagger hilt, helping Ennuyé. A purple crystal rose from the circle.

Another memory showed a tower before the acid-splashed house, with someone talking to Ennuyé and asking whether it was affecting anything. Joy set off the alarm. Ruby Eye took the dagger, splattered blood, and stopped the alarm, prompting the note “Just his blood?” A prior memory showed Ennuyé in thick white robes talking to the elven woman from the circle. Joy felt content. A dwarven lady was next to him, but was forlorn when looking at Joy and Ennuyé. Another memory showed a male dark elf next to Ennuyé being introduced in the observatory; someone told Ennuyé she did not trust him. The elf had magic, with a note “craft flesh.” Ennuyé wore five rings. Another memory showed a hot spring, opposite the dwarf lady, at Brookville Springs, apparently an early date and falling in love.

One memory showed Ruby Eye standing in a room in his building with a purple dome and copper pylons around blackness and a shadow. He asked the shadow what it thought. The shadow replied that it would not cooperate while trapped and threatened calamity. Another memory in a nice room with intricate vine patterns showed an elven mage asking about a change. The answer was nothing. Browny had retreated to the grand towers. The dwarf was worried about it. The party interpreted a secret: Browning was going to cover it all up, believing that if people knew how it worked, they would ruin it.

The last memory showed Ruby Eye in a mirror wearing robes, with a book and chain or staff. He looked down beneath the mirror, where his hand on the floor opened stone to reveal a skull. He put two crystals in the chamber for protection. The party connected this to Pythus Aleyvarus, the blue dragon. They concluded Ruby Eye seemed to have planned the dome: five pylons and five more around the Grand Towers to make it work. Early memories showed him protecting towns from elementals. One memory showed a group fighting a six-armed rock creature; when it broke, they all made a pact. Another showed a male human pointing him to a crater with a massive purple rock, and Ennuyé saying he would build an observatory to track it. Brutor said it was what they needed. The notes mention warring kingdoms coming together to construct everything, including Huntwall, the goliath kingdom shown in the mini-dome, and [goblenswell]. When the dome was turned on, something flaming burst through, pouring through the barrier, and was attacked.

The room opposite held a large engineering astrolabe showing the planet, which appeared as a dish, and the moons in real-time orbit. At 15:00 the display showed the current date and time: 31st December 1011.

The party explored further. In the room next to the orbs, they used protection from elements before opening the door. Boulder elementals were inside and tried to get out. The notes question whether they were slaves made to dig; the party left them there. Down the corridor, a room opposite the calendar room was unlocked, untrapped, and empty, mirroring the calendar room. Opposite the boulder room, a smaller room was empty except for a picture of a moon with holes that looked like large gem sockets. Opposite the orbs, opening the door felt strange. Inside were glass cabinets, pedestals, shelves, nick-nacks, brass plaques, and glass domes.

The museum-like room contained many marked objects. A bottle marked with an M and carved with flowing water was labelled “Containment token from Lord Hydrannis”; two stones at the top were glowing. A wooden sconce held a spear with flames coming from the bottom, labelled “Spear of Ciara,” the fire god; it was a +1 magic weapon and bound to magic missile [uncertain phrasing: “+1 magic bounds (magic missile)”]. A wooden shield was noted as granting +1 to saves or being disabled once per day [uncertain]. A great sword with a stone and bone hilt and darkened steel blade was a gift from the kings of the goliaths, labelled, “To the spell ones on the crafting of your big building.” A cookbook holder held a very delicate book labelled “book recovered from grand towers upon discovery.” A dwarf mannequin wore a green silk dress with gold trim and tiny emeralds along the trim, labelled “Worn by Princess Seline to the Grand Ball.” A cushion held a small red garnet with no plaque, apparently the size of the moon holes. A coin press made grand towers pennies and was labelled “press used for souvenir pennies.”

Other displays included a jar with an eyeball in fluid labelled “My Eye”; the eye could scry once per week [scyris eye]. A sealed book made of Tan leather, unsettling in appearance, had a platinum lock and human teeth around the edge; it was labelled “Noctus Cairinium Grimoire” and the lock looked like an adult human [unclear side note: blue, eldritch]. A wheat-sheaf plinth held a pillow with a marble cube radiating yellow light, labelled “British cube a gift from the golden field Halflings,” with “next child Ssethon” noted. A wine-shaped bottle was labelled “first pressing of Sigerne - midh - iel” and “Maidens dew drink.” A ring like a Bug Hunter ring was a ring of protection +1 and was labelled “Failed attempt to recreate my stolen ring.” A comb made of dragon bone and jade, carved with a forest, was labelled “gift from the elven princesses to my wife she never got on with it”; the note adds toothless toothbrush and deja vu. A silver scepter with fine golden filigree and a white Seaward gem was labelled “staff gifted by the merfolk of the great sea.”

The gem-writing riddle said, “time existed before me but history can only begin after my creation,” pointing to the calendar room or library. The celestial book suggested the tower was the centre of the world, though the party did not know where it came from. Geldrin read it and had a vision of six primeval elements looking down on the world.

Geldrin’s alarm went off. Four burly black dragonborn figures appeared at the end of the corridor. They heard the alarm and said in Draconic, “The alarm’s going off somewhere in here.” They wanted the party to leave and claimed the place in the name of their master. Their shields bore mosquitos. The party created a shield wall and yanked the crowbar out. They fought them, with notes recording 3 1/2 swords, four mosquito shields, 70 gp, four tower pennies, and an obsidian bird named Errol. Errol’s lost message revealed that the gnome, Rawi/Rewi, had given the party’s location to the black dragon [uncertain].

The party continued solving gem riddles. A red gem under the celestial book’s plinth bore the line, “The floor of my ship is decorated in equal parts with riches, tools, weapons & love”; this may have pointed to games [unclear/crossed out]. In the kitchen, whose walls and ceiling were blackened and whose oven was empty, a jar contained a gem with the riddle, “The rich want it, the poor have it, both will perish if they eat it,” answered as nothing. A magically sealed barrel with a cold-beer rune contained a jar with a hand in it: Ruby Eye’s hand, with the blood that stopped the alarm. Another room was warded and locked. The previously empty room was now full of books about controlling earth elementals, Tan gems for spells, warding, and constructing crystals for magic. A gem inside a book had the riddle, “Although I’m not royalty, I’m sometimes a king or a queen, and although I never marry I’m only sometimes single,” answered as bed.

The party used unseen servant in the elemental room. A gem in the elemental room had the riddle, “in my first part stir creativity & in my full form I store the results,” answered as museum. A gem in the orb room behind an orb said, “You have me today, tomorrow you’ll have more, as time passes I become harder to store, I don’t take up space and I’m all in one place, I can bring a tear to your eye or a smile to your face,” answered as memories. One memory said, “if you got here you got my message, only clue is based on the layout of my rooms. When you get inside you’ll know what to do.” A gem in the calendar room had the riddle, “I ignore the start of this recipe just scramble, hidden,” with kitchen as the answer. In the bedroom, which had a woman’s touch with tapestries, rugs, wardrobes, drawers, a full-length mirror, chair, and fireplace, a compartment under the mirror held a skull with two gemstones. A rolled-up paper sat in an eye socket behind a big gem. The note says, “if you feel I’ve lived a good life this is the Denouement (final part, finishing piece).” Another gem in the other eye bore the riddle, “They are never together, yet always follow one another, one falls but never breaks and the other breaks but never falls,” answered as calendar.

When the gems were placed in the slots, a room opened. Inside was a purple sphere that did not let light through. The party wondered if it contained a void creature that had not been used because it might have been too weak. It seemed to be a self-contained barrier, and the void creature wanted to be let out. It referred to “the diviner,” the one who stole his brother, the twin the party had killed. The nearby door had both a mechanical trap, which activated something in the room, and a magical trap, which teleported someone to the room.

The treasure was divided according to the agreement. Pythus took the creepy book, the Celestial book. Dirk took the sword and the scepter of the merfolk. The note-writer took the coin press and cube. Invar took the ring of protection and potion bottle. Geldrin took the spear and eye. Pythus gave Geldrin a scroll of teleportation and left. Geldrin took the eye and scried on Pythus, seeing a sandstone cavern and a pile of gold with a blue dragon on top reading the skin book, whose pages were made of cured human flesh. The place seemed to be at the edge of the desert near “Salvation.”

The party returned to the void room. The void creature said it would tell them what was in its room in exchange for freedom, and that what was in the room would help release it. It said Ruby Eye wanted to live forever and went in with an elven woman and a dark male [uncertain: Envil]. The creature was only a fragment of the void, but if added to the others it could become more powerful, though only a tiny bit. Inside was a key that looked like pylons placed against a barrier: a copper circle that could be turned. The void talked as though the barrier was not active. The device seemed to be a pylon for its prison as well as [uncertain: ankhir].

The party used the ruby to open the door and then planned to destroy it rather than give it to Ruby Eye, because he wanted to use it to become immortal as a demi-lich. Through the door next to the void were four plinths. By the door were four copper pylons that looked as though they would go over the void’s force field. Two metal copper circles, one steering-wheel sized and one over a meter wide, were stored upright with runes around them. A dragon skull, about dog-sized and identified as Alsafaur, lay on another plinth. A book with the same lock as the creepy skin book was made of leather and had an unpickable lock. The room may have stored one of Ennuyé’s rings under the skull. The skull was one of the void creature’s kind, a veridian dragonborn, dead for about one thousand years. Ennuyé’s ring was described as “a sacrifice made to live eternal, father & daughter.” The book had writing around the edge in an old dead language and was called “The memoirs & learnings of Aldaine Hartwell.” It needed a powerful identity spell to learn the command word to open the lock and book.

Mosquitos, woodlice, and moths appeared, and a rain storm began. The void said it would help as long as it was not detained. A lightning strike was seen although the party was underground. They tried to let the void out. Pushing pylons against its dome caused opposite pylons to switch it off very slightly. A ring by the dome turned and attached to the pylon; one full turn released the dome in that quadrant. The void released a circle of obsidian that could be used to contact it. The party took its ring, book, and small ring, removed the gems from the moon-face lock, headed out, and closed the initial door behind them at 18:30.

Outside, the sky was massively overcast with the storm. The air was thick with insects: moths, mosquitos, ants, and others. A circle of storm about one and a half miles wide moved unnaturally. At the barrier, a push looked like eight massive claws piercing through. A black dragon seemed to be trying to come through the barrier. He wanted the remains of his son, which seemed to be the skull in the sealed chamber. The party went back and got it. The dragon was missing part of his face. The party thought Ruby Eye did it, though the dragon may have started it by killing Ruby Eye’s son. When the skull was placed near the barrier, crystals on the dragon’s scales parted the barrier a little, though it still hurt him. He took the skull and said they were even for killing his men. He flew off, and the thunderstorm went with him.

The party headed back to Newhaven with the cart. They went to a pub whose sign or picture showed five hands together making a star, identified as the Pact. A silver dragonborn with golden-rim spectacles was behind the bar. Halfling wait staff and a Tabaxi barmaid were present. The name “Gelandril Thurtall” was recorded. He had been there ten years, and it was said the five wizards used to meet there. Dragonborn seen locally included Silver Thurtall, sporadic copper, white, and black. The party then slept.

People, Factions, and Places Mentioned

• Rewi Lovelace / Rawi [uncertain]: gnome at Seaward town hall; had obsidian raven Errol and may have sent the party’s location to the black dragon.
• Errol: obsidian raven communication device, “called Errol (But not really).”
• Justicar: still a problem; the raven suggested cooperating with her, but the party resisted sharing their location.
• Geldrin: copied teleportation circle runes, set alarms, read the celestial book, received a vision, took the spear and eye, received a teleportation scroll, and scried on Pythus.
• Dirk: found covered footprints, used a crowbar on the door chains, took the out-of-place scepter, and later took the sword and merfolk scepter.
• Invar: received the ring of protection and potion bottle.
• Pythus Aleyvarus: blue dragon in human desert robes; claimed not to work for the black dragon; collector of magical trinkets; took the creepy book and Celestial book; later scried in a sandstone cavern near Salvation.
• Brutor Ruby Eye: abjuration wizard of Tor, creator or planner of the dome, demi-lich figure seeking immortality, source of memories and blood-hand alarm mechanism.
• Tor: rock-associated divine or elemental figure represented by a jagged rock-man statue; “Tor Protects.”
• Ennuyé / Ennuyé / Ennuyé [uncertain spelling]: central wizard figure in memories, wore five rings, planned an observatory for the purple rock, associated with Joy and the containment system.
• Joy: present in memories, set off the alarm, and seemed emotionally connected to Ennuyé.
• Browny / Browning [uncertain]: believed likely to cover up how the system worked.
• Lord Hydrannis: associated with a containment token.
• Ciara: fire god linked to the Spear of Ciara.
• Princess Seline: wore the green silk dress to the Grand Ball.
• Golden field Halflings: gifted the glowing cube.
• Ssethon: name noted beside the glowing cube display.
• Merfolk of the Great Sea: gifted the silver and gold-filigrreed scepter.
• Black dragonborn with mosquito shields: claimed the site for their master and fought the party.
• Black dragon / Infestus [likely but not explicitly named here]: master associated with the black dragonborn and with the storm at the barrier.
• Alsafaur: dog-sized dragon skull, one of the void creature’s kind, a veridian dragonborn dead for about a thousand years.
• Aldaine Hartwell: author of “The memoirs & learnings of Aldaine Hartwell.”
• Gelandril Thurtall: recorded at the Newhaven pub; connected to Silver Thurtall.
• Silver Thurtall: local silver dragonborn.
• Newhaven: anomalous fresh-water town near salted land, where the party returned at night.
• Seaward: town from which the raven flew and where Rewi was based.
• Stonebrook: town three miles earthfire wise.
• Lake Azure: reference point for a crossed-out city note.
• Aegis-on-Sands: reference point for the crossed-out city note.
• Grand Towers: built with goliath help; focus of memories and artifacts.
• Huntwall: goliath kingdom shown in the mini-dome.
• [goblenswell]: one of the warring kingdoms [uncertain spelling].
• Brookville Springs: location of an early romantic memory.
• Salvation: desert-edge location near where Pythus was scried.
• The Pact: symbol of five hands making a star at the Newhaven pub; also tied to the five wizards.

Items, Rewards, and Resources

• Obsidian raven Errol: communication device; one recovered from the black dragonborn fight.
• Password “Spinal”: opened the laboratory doors.
• Compass: Geldrin used it to find the weak signal leading to the hidden site.
• Teleportation circle rune number: copied by Geldrin.
• Crowbar: used to hold the dwarf-face door chains open.
• Ruby in dwarf face: released chains to open the door.
• Scale model of the Penta City states: showed shield energy and elements at compass points, but not prisons or labs.
• Crystal balls: memory storage or viewing devices.
• Astrolabe: real-time model of the dish-like planet and moons; displayed 31st December 1011.
• Protection from elements spell: used before opening the boulder elemental room.
• Museum artifacts: Containment token from Lord Hydrannis; Spear of Ciara; wooden shield with +1 save/once-per-day disable [uncertain]; goliath great sword; delicate grand towers book; Princess Seline’s dress; garnet; grand towers penny press; scrying eye; Noctus Cairinium Grimoire; glowing marble cube; first pressing of [Sigerne - midh - iel] / Maidens dew drink; ring of protection +1; dragon bone and jade comb; merfolk scepter.
• 70 gp, four tower pennies, four mosquito shields, and an obsidian bird: recovered after fighting black dragonborn.
• Ruby Eye’s hand in a jar: contained blood that stopped the alarm.
• Books on earth elemental control, Tan gems for spells, warding, and crystal construction: appeared in the formerly empty room.
• Riddle gems: recovered from the celestial book plinth, kitchen, books, elemental room, orb room, calendar room, bedroom skull, and moon-face lock.
• Scroll of teleportation: given by Pythus to Geldrin.
• Void contact circle of obsidian: given or released by the void creature to contact it.
• Ennuyé’s ring: found under the skull, tied to “a sacrifice made to live eternal, father & daughter.”
• Leather book with unpickable lock: “The memoirs & learnings of Aldaine Hartwell,” requiring a powerful identity spell to learn the command word.
• Copper pylons and copper rings: used to manipulate the void creature’s force field or prison.
• Dragon skull of Alsafaur: given to the black dragon at the barrier.

Clues, Mysteries, and Open Threads

• Newhaven has anomalous good water while surrounding wells and land are salted.
• Rewi/Rawi may have betrayed the party’s location to the black dragon through Errol.
• Five or six searchers camped near the barrier recently; acid corrosion, blood, and swept-over traces suggest black dragon involvement.
• The hidden laboratory uses Brutor’s password and contains records of pylons, towers, shield energy, and containment technology.
• The model did not show prisons or labs, raising questions about deliberate omission or later construction.
• Pythus claimed not to work for the black dragon but took dangerous books, including a human-flesh grimoire, and was later seen reading it near Salvation.
• The memories suggest the barrier, Grand Towers, observatory, pact, purple rock, and elemental containment were planned together.
• Ennuyé’s five rings and the ring found under Alsafaur’s skull are important, but their full function is unresolved.
• Browning may have deliberately erased or hidden knowledge of how the barrier works.
• Ruby Eye may have used blood, sacrifice, a preserved hand, or family links in his alarm and immortality plans.
• The six primeval elements in Geldrin’s vision may explain the deeper cosmology behind the barrier.
• The void creature may be only a fragment of void, distinct from the larger void prison, and is now free or at least contactable.
• The void says it will help if not detained, but its reliability and intentions remain uncertain.
• The black dragon wanted his son’s skull and considered the party even after receiving it, but his wider goals remain dangerous.
• Crystals on the black dragon’s scales can part the barrier slightly, though it hurts him.
• The unnatural storm and insects followed the void or black dragon events and dispersed when the black dragon left.
• The five-hand Pact symbol and claim that five wizards met at the Newhaven pub link the pub to the original barrier creators.