Forgotten Suns: Log - Unshaped Tomb
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 - The Glass Lamentation | 19 September 2006 |
The dragon is so beautiful, the circle feels a pang of magically induced guilt each time they attack it. That doesn't stop them, though. 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.
| Kinaniz - The Perpetual Bustle | 19 September 2006 |
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.
The circle travels fairly far down the road through this perpetual bustle before realizing that they are being followed. At first, only a few flying creatures resembling large clusters of wings tail them discretely at a distance. Soon, they spot one or two giant frogs with skin made of water following them on the ground, joined by octopi-like rose brambles. Eventually, a hound with fire for eyes and smoke for a tail and two lizards made of rock crystal join. They keep well back, but their numbers grow as the circle proceeds.
Since they are not actively hostile, the circle leaves them be. Ultimately, they reach a large plaza with a fountain in the center and a circular road around it. Ahead, the road forks, and each fork is filled with creatures just like the ones following them, collectively known as Mute Sentinels. They make no noise and no demands, just stoically blocking progress down the two forks.
Varden runs down a side road, to see if they can go around, but he quickly emerges on the opposite side of the street, the side road somehow feeding around in a loop. Meanwhile, the pack that was following them draws closer. The circle decides to force their way through the left fork, as it appears more likely to lead to the tower they've seen. When the make a move to do so, the sentinels attack, leading to a large brawl in the center plaza.
| Kinaniz - The Perpetual Bustle | 22 October 2006 |
The sentinels all have their own advantages (dogs all breathe fire, the brambles are poisonous, the wings fly, etc.) but they do not work together very well. The long tongues of the frogs and their sticky saliva cause the group most of the trouble, and allow the sheer numbers of the others to work in the sentinel's favor. Adrios evens the odds, however, using a blur of magic and motion to plant an arrow in every sentinel at once. This kills many of them, and rallies the rest of the circle. Adrios joins the rest of the circle in becoming iconic when he repeats this attack with the remainder of his arrows, killing most of the rest. The circle, anima nearly to bright to look at, mop up the rest.
Exhausted and wounded, the circle gathers as many arrows as they can salvage, then moves a bit down the left fork. Before long, they break into a house (which is empty) and rest.
| Kinaniz - The Vaporous Anchorage | 26 October 2006 |
After sleep and serious healing from Jorias, the head down the street again, towards the tower. The reach it without incident and realize it is meant to be a tower where air vehicles would dock, though it seems long abandoned and run down. For reasons that make sense to them, they decide to climb to the top of the tower. About halfway up, they hear buzzing and barking that gets louder as they climb. The send Guen ahead and he finds a hive of giant pink wasps, with dog heads. The circle ends up engaging a few of them lower down in the tower, until Stag possesses one and flies up to the top. There, he sees just more wasps. Without anything particularly of interest above, the circle decides to leave and move on.
| Kinaniz - The Consummate Repose | 26 October 2006 |
They walk, entering an area containing miles of residences, hotels, inns and other places of rest, all looking warm, cosy and inviting. The weather became irritating, with freezing rain and wind. Rightfully suspect of the inviting nature of the inns and hotels, and noticing a compulsion acting on them to rest and clean up, the circle remains steadfastly outside and dirty.
They start to notice a number of mortals in some of the inns they see, clearly being fed on by those who ran the inn. Gutts takes to setting buildings they pass on fire. They come to a crossroads and take neither path, going down the middle instead. They eventually come to the largest, most opulent inn they'd seen, which turns out to also be a bath house and bordello. Peeking inside, they see 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 smashes a hole in the wall to the opium den. The circle climbs in as the fair folk mostly scatter. The mortals, and a few fair folk, stare sleepily at the circle until Gutts fires up his anima. The ten foot fiery gerbil sends everyone running from any exit they can find. Entering the room calmly against this panic, Blooming Radiance and Purity Song ask the circle if they can be of assistance. Though they appear as an attractive couple, the two make no secret of being noble fair folk and using the inn to feed. Guen, in beastman form, begins 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) decides to burn the place while the rest get the remaining mortals out. Stag ignores all this and explores 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 is.
Meanwhile, the rest of the circle decides what to do with the humans, who mostly whine about being dirty and tired. They eventually decide to take them along. Some abandon the group and others have to be dragged by Gutts most of the way, but the group travels until the green plants gradually switch to a deep purple-red. After a bit more traveling, they find themselves in something resembling a city park and decide to camp for the night.
| Kinaniz - The Amaranthine Esplanade | 19 November 2006 |
During the night, a horde of 12,000 six inch tall people rush the camp from all sides, almost from out of nowhere. Stag, on watch, barely manages to yell out a warning before they swarm over the circle. Gutts wakes up and immediately flares his anima. The sight of the 20 foot flaming gerbil sends about a quarter of the diminutive mob running into the night and reveales four units of bigger (about a foot tall) people with bows, one in each direction. While the smaller people seem dressed as farmers, longshoremen and other laborers, these relatively larger troops appear and act more like soldiers. The light from the gerbil also reveals a mob of the tiny people attacking the mortals the circle rescued earlier. The group fends off attacks from swarms of the little people while they raise charms, all except Jorias who doesn't wake up, even after being stabbed by one of the mobs.
As the circle gets up to speed, Gutts slices great swathes through the mobs, Stag digs holes in the ground to bury large groups, and Guen becomes a flurry of fur and claws. Adrios sends flaming arrows into their ranks and, once he got going, Varden knocks large chunks from their ranks. Stag, using a charm to make his skin like orichalcum, starts rolling around to crush large numbers. Within seconds, the ground is covered with a sea of tiny body parts and high-picthed wails.
During the melee, a sudden wind picks 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, chooses to accept this narrative, as do a number of humans to weak to resist it. Those humans, about half, are shredded by the leaves and blown a huge distance back the way the party came. The others ignore the narrative, fighting through the leaves and mostly helping the mortals that remain. The trees also seem to get involved, but indecisively. One attacks Jorias when, after finally waking up, he jumps into it, but another prevens Adrios from falling out of it.
At one point in the battle, both Stag and Guen hear an amused laugh off in the distance. As they spread that information to the rest of the circle, nearly everyone hears a voice say "Hmm. I thought this would be more fun. I guess you might as well retreat." Gutts continues to hack into the tiny assault as they turn to retreat, vocally denigrating exalts and praising "the revolution" as they withdrew. More concerned with the voice, Adrios fires a number of flaming arrows various distances into the darkness, trying to illuminate the source of the voice. Stag manages 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 go back to sleep and the others take watch.
In the morning, they continue deeper into the forest, which eventually turns into more of a park, then a garden. They see statues of Wyr'palja in various guises, sometimes with a birdman who was always vandalized, missing a head or a face. Continuing on, they come to a huge palace, about two miles across and suspended a hundred yards above the ground on glass spires.
| Kinaniz - The Imminent Eminence | 19 November 2006 |
Leaving the remnants of their mortal charges outside, the circle enters the large building. Passing through a door into one of the spires, they find it to be a hollow tube, leading two hundred yards up. Something attempts 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 accept this hospitality and easily float to the top. The others don't trust it and have Guen fly them up.
Inside is a large series of catwalks connecting numerous floating platform gardens. Each platform seems to contain a tribute to some place, person or event, but they make no sense. They obviously try to convey some meaning, but it gets lost in a jumble of psychosis. Under all the catwalks is a large glass model of a huge city.
Led by Gutts' [[Map of Azure Victory][magic map]], they track down what turns out to be a mortal, nearly starved to death, staring at a waterfall within one of the gardens. She doesn't remember much about how she got there, or how long she has been there. With the mortal in tow, they look for others.
As they look, they notice that the model is populated by tiny glass people doing a variety of things. Also, the model itself reshapes and moves, changing the city in bizarre ways. The city follows no plan at all, but as they watch for a while, they notice a cycle that repeats, though with different variations each time:
- The city is, briefly, and endless forest. Suddenly, from the center, a wave radiates outward, leaving towers, buildings and roads in its wake all circled by a wall.
- The buildings grow tall and narrow (though never in the same way) and airships fly between them.
- The city freezes, and a vast funeral procession occurs somewhere.
- People suddenly swarm out of lesser buildings and storm more important looking ones. Mobs drag people out of these buildings and kill them.
- Large groups of people suddenly die, falling where they stand. Only a few remain roaming around.
- Hordes of strange people and creatures storm in from the edge of the model and rampage through the city.
- The city ripples and collapses in on itself, sinking into the ground, leaving only an endless forest behind.
On one of the catwalks, hey find an obviously non-mortal woman waiting for them. She introduces herself as Embouchurean and tells them that she serves one of the masters of this place.
| Kinaniz - The Imminent Eminence | 22 November 2006 |
Both Embouchurean and the circle ask each other questions, but the answers given by all only confuse everyone. Eventually, the circle convinces Embouchurean to get her master to talk to them directly. One of the tiny glass people from the model below flies up to the catwalk and grows slightly. It introduces himself as Misplaced Promise, "inhabiting this poppet to converse with you". He demands to know why they are here. The circle prevaricates a bit, but eventually mentions they are seeking a 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 along the way as well, but its clear he doesn't know what's in the tomb, but thinks that finding out will "complete" him somehow.
| Kinaniz - The Sauroid Mnemonic | 22 November 2006 |
The party moves on into a strange neighborhood of a city, all built around curves and triangles, and scaled slightly larger than human size. Though it is abandoned, artwork makes it clear that the inhabitants were lizard-like creatures very similar to Ranesk. Jorias and Stag realize that there is a large body of writing on all of the artwork, with enough context that they may be able to decipher it. Jorias thinks this might be of great help to Ranesk, and Stag agrees for his own reasons. The rest of the circle couldn't care less about the language, but want to take time to train, so the circle and their mortal flock settles into the area for a while.
After three weeks, and quite a bit of learning magic, Jorias and Stag learn quite a bit about the Dragon Kings, while the others train, and the mortals get very bored.
| Kinaniz - The Determined Citadel | 29 November 2006 |
The circle moves on to the next section, 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 - The Determined Citadel | 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 using 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 rests for a night.
| Kinaniz - The Thoroughfare Lattice | 5 Jan 2007 |
Having been told the way to the tomb, the circle regroups and follows the instructions, winding down a corridor that takes them to the bottom of a well. Peeking up the well, Varden sees a vast spherical room above. In the exact center floats a large rocky area on which a marble building rests. The building is upside down, and the rock it is on seems anchored by a web of chitinous buttresses that connect to the sides of the spherical room. Millions of multi-colored flower petals slowly float in the air of the sphere, making it hard to see.
Stairs lead up the sides of the well to the sphere, but when the circle tries to use them, arrows rain down from above. They also feel a story trying to enforce itself on them: "the heroes see the impressive display and run away, avoiding the freehold's guards." They resist, but doing so constantly distracts them. Once prepared, they rush into the well again, most leaping into the webbing within the sphere. Adrios stays in the well, sniping targets from a distance. Varden stays there as well, covering Adrios.
As they do, the realize that there is no gravity within the sphere. They also spot some of their adversaries. Floating between the circle and the building above, a strange woman with a dragon tail and covered with purple scales fires arrows at them with great precision. The circle guesses this is Cahlenna, having been captured by the unshaped and forced to guard the tomb. Surrounding her are her Petal_Guard, androgynous warriors, bald, with pointed ears and covered in bright body paint and even brighter silk. These all hold knives and a nearly religious fervor burns in their eyes. Arrows also continue to rain from further away, but the petals prevent the circle from seeing their source.
Varden continually makes distracting gestures at Cahlenna, greatly messing with her attacks. This earns him her wrath, and she concentrates fire on him, which he largely dodges. Still firing as the rest of the circle closes, she starts to say "Perhaps we can come to some sort of an…" but stops when she notices Guen in beastman form. Seeing this, she immediately yells "kill the lunar!"
As the arrows start to target Guen almost exclusively, the opposition unleashes shaping attacks against the circle. Some Ring shaping succeeds, forcing two of the circle to spend Willpower to avoid it. The androgynous warriors use sword shaping against various artifacts in the circle's possession. Most of these fail, but Gutts grand daiklave and Jorias' armor get claimed by the raksha. Though this does not transfer physical possession of the items, it allows the raksha to deattune the solars from these artifacts, making them dead weight. Fortunately for Gutts, the zero gravity and his enhanced strength allow him to continue swinging his sword, though with less effectiveness.
| Kinaniz - The Thoroughfare Lattice | 2 Feb 2007 |
The circle focusses on the Cahlenna, but the androgynous warriors continually intercept attacks against her with their own bodies. The hidden archers also inflict quite a bit of damage. Jorias attempts to find one of the archers, moving away from the central battle to track him down. His now de-attuned armor makes him sluggish, but he spots something that looks like a humanoid tree with a wicked looking bow. Closing the distance, he exchanges ranged attacks with him, getting the worse end of it. Realizing he needs to close more rapidly, he grabs one hand onto the chitinous "webbing", then catches an arrow fired at him, using its momentum to whip around the webbing and carry him back to the arrow's source. This isn't enough however, and Jorias falls unconscious. From far below, however, Adrios manages to finally take out the archer.
While this was going on, Guen uses his own senses to find the other hidden archer and dispatch him with his bow. Gutts and Adrios manage to make some headway against Cahlenna and her guard, with Gutts knocking the guard far away from the battle and Varden continuing to provide distraction from below.
Meanwhile, Stag largely bypasses the battle, drifting up to the roof of the building above. As he gets near, he can feel the tug of gravity, and flips around to stand on the roof, looking up at the battle now "above" him. As the battle rages on, he leaps down a level to find a large set of doors. He tries to open these but gets a large shock when he touches the door.
| Kinaniz - The Thoroughfare Lattice | 2 March 2007 |
Guen makes it back over to Gutts and takes down a few more of the Guard. Gutts finally manages to land decent blows on Cahlenna and kills her. With her death, the fight goes out of her guard immediately, most of whom just stare in stunned silence as Gutts finishes them off.
The circle gathers up the bodies of their enemies and lands on the roof of the building to sort through their gear. They stabilize Jorias, but he remains unconscious. Varden claims the Ophidian Kata Rings worn by Cahlenna and Adrios takes one of her arrows, tipped by an Essence Union Dart that she tried to use on Varden. The group looks through the rest of the gossamer gear and considers various pieces. Guen finds a sphere of topaz on Cahlenna and determines it is the physical manifestation of a Srishti oath called the Topaz Mind. He eventually decides to swear an oath of his own to claim it.
Grave of the Founder
| Kinaniz - The Reclaimed Sepulcher | 9 March 2007 |
After resting long enough for Jorias to recover and debating for far too long, the circle decide to enter the tomb. Inexplicably, Jorias refuses to heal others in the circle at first, conserving his essence. The door opens at the touch of Varden, leading to large room with a pool and a statue of a winged woman holding a spear. Three stairs lead down to the pool, then three more lead up on the other side to a set of double doors. Intricately carved glass birds of all breeds, sizes and colors birch on the side walls. Recognizing this room from their [[Medicine Lodge Vision][collective vision]], the group proceeds carefully. The birds begin to flutter when Varden and Stag moves onto the first step. From there, Stag sees the statue says "Wyr'Palja".
Guen tries to fly across the room, but as soon as he passes the stairs, the birds erupt into motion, filling the room with flying glass. Guen takes quite a bit of damage but makes it across. He reaches the door, but is unable to open it. The birds remain flying and without much discussion, Varden and Gutts storm across the room. Varden manages to dodge most of the birds, but Gutts get a bit cut up. Stag, Jorias and Adrios stay where they are.
Varden manages to pick the lock on the door and, once it opens, the birds land back on the side walls. The rest of the group crosses without issue and go through the door. They enter into a very large room, created as a tribute to Wyr'palja. The main part of the room is divided by a circle of columns surrounding a strange pattern on the floor, in front of a sarcophagus.
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.