Forgotten Suns: Log - Unshaped Tomb

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The Living City

Misty swamp

7 September 2006

After licking their wounds, the circle set off again towards the base of the trees holding up the unshaped, Kinaniz. Leaving Bezul behind to guard the Cloudwalking Ingot, the circle climbs the massive trunk. After a bit of confusion, they manage to break through the upper foliage onto a flat surface that gradually becomes a city street. Scattered along the path are multicolored glass statues of humans, frozen in horrified poses, as if recoiling from something up ahead. As the circle continues, the statues become more numerous and Guen can sense that the Essence of living people remains in these statues. Vaguely creeped out by the scene, the circle proceeds slowly until reaching a bridge.

Laying on the bridge is a long dragon made of stained glass. Suddenly, and inexplicably, interested in diplomacy, Gutts steps forward and introduces himself. The [[Diamaskratos][dragon]] responds by breathing acid on everyone. As the dragon brings its four tails to bear against the circle, Jorias jumps on top of the dragon's head. Gutts follows, jumping right into the dragon's mouth.

Kinaniz

19 September 2006

The dragon is so beautiful, the circle feels a pang of magically induced guilt each time they attack it. Even so, with Gutts cutting away from the inside and the rest of the circle pounding away on the outside, the dragon eventually falls.

In the distance, the circle can see a tall tower. As they continue down the road, they notice that the statues are looking slightly off the path of the road. This becomes more pronounced, eventually turning nearly perpendicular to the road. They decide to follow the gaze of the statues off the road, into a disorganized neighborhood. In a plaza within, they find a monument indicating that, on this spot, Wyr'palja turned the inhabitants of the neighborhood to glass. No reason or other explanation is given, and the circle doesn't know what to make of it.

They move back onto the road, which eventually leads to an open gate. Through the gate, the circle moves deeper into a city, the road seemingly a main drag where much is going on. To much, in fact. It seems as if hundreds of various stories are being acted out by inhabitants, all at once. None of the inhabitants react to the presence of the circle, and only interact with other inhabitants in the same "vignette". Most appear human, but occasional dragon kings or even stranger creatures appear.

Entered Perpetual Bustle. Noticed being followed. Eventually get surrounded.

Kinaniz

22 October 2006

Defeated all of the Mute Sentinels, mostly with bow fire from Adrios.

Kinaniz

24 October 2006

Break into house and sleep for night.

Follow path toward the tower. Reach tower, start to climb, for reasons that make sense only to them. Eventually find mutant bees. Stag possesses one, determines they are mindless and have taken over the top of the tower. They leave.

They walk, entering the Consummate Repose. The freezing rain didn't tempt them to go inside and they refused to accept any of the shaping. They started to notice a number of mortals in some of the inns they saw, clearly being fed on by those who ran the inn. Gutts took to setting buildings they passed on fire. They came to a crossroads and took neither path, going down the middle instead. They came to a largest, most opulent inn they'd seen, which turned out to also be a bath house and bordello. Peeking inside, they saw more mortals in an opium den-like room being tempted by half-naked fair folk. Ignoring the scantily clad woman trying to tempt them into the front door, Gutts smashed a hole in the wall to the opium den. The circle climbed in as the fair folk mostly scattered. The mortals, and a few fair folk, stared sleepily at the circle until Gutts fired up his anima. The ten foot fiery gerbil sent everyone running from any exit they could find. Entering the room calmly against this panic, Blooming Radiance and Purity Song asked the circle if they could be of assistance. Though they appeared as an attractive couple, the two made no secret of being noble fair folk and using the inn to feed. Guen, in beastman form, began a strangely cordial discussion, with the flaming gerbil still looking around the opulent room.

After failing to get much information from the couple, the circle (well, Gutts and Adrios) decided to burn the place while the rest got the remaining mortals out. Stag ignored all this and explored the inn, locating and grabbing the Clean Pillow Wish. After several attempts to bind to it among the circle, Guen eventually succeeded, identifying the pillow for what it was.

Meanwhile, the rest of the circle decided what to do with the humans, who mostly whined about being dirty and tired. They eventually decided to take them along. Some abandoned the group and others had to be dragged by Gutts most of the way, but the group travelled until the green plants gradually switched to a deep purple-red. After a bit more traveling, they found themselves in something resembling a city park. The decided to camp for the night.

Kinaniz

19 November 2006

During the night, a horde of 12,000 six inch tall people rushed the camp from all sides, almost from out of nowhere. Stag, on watch, barely managed to yell out a warning before they swarmed over the circle. Stag woke up and immediately flared his anima. The 20 foot flaming gerbil sent about a quarter of the diminutive mob running into the night and revealed four units of bigger (about a foot tall) people with bows, one in each direction. While the smaller people seemed dressed as farmers, longshoremen and other laborers, these relatively larger troops appeared and acted more as soldiers. The light from the gerbil also revealed a mob of the tiny people attacking the mortals the circle rescued earlier. The group fended off attacks from swarms of the little people while they raised charms, all except Jorias who didn't wake up, even after being stabbed by one of the mobs.

As the circle got up to speed, Gutts sliced great swathes through the mobs, Stag dug holes in the ground to bury large groups, and Guen became a flurry of fur and claws. Adrios sent flaming arrows into their ranks and, once he got going, Varden knocked large chunks from their ranks. Stag, using a charm to make his skin like orichalcum, took to rolling around to crush large numbers. Within seconds, the ground was covered with a see of tiny body parts and high-picthed wails.

During the melee, a sudden wind picked up, sending purple leaves screaming through the night. This was part of a narrative shaping from a Fair Folk who could not be seen, attempting to tell the story: ""A mighty wind arose, blowing the purple leaves so quickly, they cut like razors. The exalts cowardly abandoned their human charges and pressed on, leaving the hapless mortals to be blown out of the forest." Stag, not particularly caring about the humans, choose to accept this narrative, as did a number of humans to weak to resist it. Those humans, about half, were shredded by the leaves and blown a huge distance back the way the party came. The others ignored the narrative, fighting through the leaves and mostly helping the mortals that remained. The trees also seemed to get involved, but indecisively. One attacked Jorias when, after finally waking up, he jumped into it, but another prevented Adrios from falling out of it.

At one point in the battle, both Stag and Guen heard an amused laugh off in the distance. As they spread that information to the rest of the circle, nearly everyone heard a voice say "Hmm. I thought this would be more fun. I guess you might as well retreat." Gutts continued to hack into the tiny assault as they turned to retreat, vocally denigrating exalts and praising "the revolution" as they withdrew. More concerned with the voice, Adrios fired a number of flaming arrows various distances into the darkness, trying to illuminate the source of the voice. Stag managed to catch sight of something as an arrow passed it, but it was gone by the time Guen checked it out.

Gutts and Jorias promptly went back to sleep and the others stayed watch.

In the morning, they continued deeper into the forest, which eventually turned into more of a park, then a garden. They saw statues of Wyr'palja in various guises, sometimes with a birdman who was always vandalized, missing a head or a face. Continuing on, they came to a huge palace, about two miles across and suspended a hundred yards above the ground on glass spires. Passing through a door into one of the spires, the circle found it to be a hollow tube, leading two hundred yards up. Something was attempting to convince them of the following reality: "The visitor relaxed and the palace welcomed them, bringing them safely to the top of the tube." Gutts and Varden accepted this hospitality and easily floated to the top. The others didn't trust it and had Guen fly them up.

Led by Gutts's magic map, they tracked down what turned out to be a mortal, nearly starved to death, staring at a waterfall within the palace. She didn't remember much about how she got there, or how long she was there. As the circle looked for others, they found an obviously non-mortal woman, who introduced herself as Embouchurean. She indicated she served one of the masters of this place.

Kinaniz

22 November 2006

Conversation with Embouchurean. Eventually convinced her master to talk to them, which he did by inhabiting a poppet from the floor below. Introduces himself as Misplaced Promise. When the circle mentions they are looking for the tomb, a long discussion follows, during which Promise makes a deal with them: he tells them how to get to the tomb, in exchange for a promise that, should the circle gain entrance, they allow him inside as well. They eventually agree, but not with much enthusiasm. He gives them a decent idea of what they will face as well.

The party moves through the next waypoint, largely a memorial to dragon kings, and they decide to take the time to learn some of the language. It takes three weeks, but Stag and Jorias learn quite a bit about the Dragon Kings, while the others train, and the mortals get very bored.

Kinaniz

29 November 2006

The circle moves on to the next waypoint, which they know will contain opposition in the form of something called the Regency. They move through some tunnels to get to a large stronghold made of trees. They elect to leave the mortals behind, and scale the walls to get in. A large cadre of poppets seems to get out of their way as the move deeper into the castle. Eventually, all paths seem to reach a central courtyard, where the Regency and Revolting Proletariat wait.

The circle engage them both, in spite of reality turing against them. After a few attacks against the Regency fail, they figure out that only magically backed attacks can hit him. The Regency, however, isn't prepared for Stag attacking at range and cutting through his armor, so falls fairly quickly. Meanwhile, Gutts uses magic to fly into a killing rage.

Kinaniz

19 December 2006

It doesn't take long for the circle to take on Proletariat and stag lands a flurry of blows backed by his newfound knowledge of the Earth Dragon, turning the behemoth to stone. Unphased, Gutts keeps hacking at the rock, then starts tracking down other enemies to kill. The circle attempts to intervene, without letting Gutts know. After he shrugs off one sleep spell (with some help from Guen, who thought the Fair Folk were trying to poison him), Gutts gets possessed by Stag, who tries to knock him out by jumping off a balcony, face first into the ground below. Gutts armor protects him from the worst of this. Gutts pushes out Stag and continues his rampage, with Guen uses charms to pump up Gutts' virtues. Varden finds the whole scene childish and offensive (gaining limit) while Gutts manages to overcome yet another sleep spell and attacks from the flowing cobblestone floor (now animated by Stag). Stag engages Gutts attention for quite a while, but he eventually overcomes the stone and Stag is tossed out of it as well.

When Gutts finds some enemies asleep from the first spell, his newfound Temperance makes him consider ending the charm and, therefore, the killing spree, but he blows the test needed to end the charm, so is forced to suppress his Temperance and gain limit. A later check also causes him to override his newfound Compassion as well. Eventually, running deeper into the castle (and out of the zone of protection from the Wyld generated by Stag's artifact), he runs out of enemies and comes to his senses.

By this time, the party had elected to ignore him, searching the body of the Regency instead, finding a number of gossamer weapons and armor, but not much else. While pointedly ignoring Gutts, the party rested for a night.

Kinaniz

5 Jan 2007

Kinaniz

2 Feb 2007

Kinaniz

2 March 2007

Finally defeated Cahlenna.

Grave of the Founder

Kinaniz

9 March 2007

Into the tomb. First Age map mosaic. Art hints of the Ebon Dragon. No ref to lunar lover. Figure out mixtures needed to get deeper.

Kinaniz

14 March 2007

Fight and defeat of warden demons. Discover room with crystal forest inside. Entering causes a rain of very strong acid. Varden's force field protects (with lots of essence backing it).

Kinaniz

10 May 2007

Room with mandala and slowly spinning sphere. Add a level 4 air hearthstone to sphere: spins faster, strange bangs from outside. False floor discovered. Unlock door, triggering phantom swords. Rooms filled with grave goods of food. See paintings.

Kinaniz

16 May 2007

Enter the moonsilver tomb, find the warstriders and the body of Iron Monsoon, as well as the needles in his body. Get into the solar tomb, duplicate of Wyr'palia poisons Stag to incapacitated. Original body found, some duplicates remain.