Shattered Star: The Asylum Stone [IC]

[Qazgir]

Sisir

"Its meaning escapes me as well. Perhaps the keep and abbey are the locations of two parts of this shattered star. I am most intrigued by the claiming of the crown, and I certainly dislike the idea of a doomsday door. Iluvar, Scribe, in your previous endeavors collecting the artifacts, do you recall anything that might relate to this prophecy?"

[lostsole31]

The owl will seek but will not find,
but spire of knowledge pays in kind
in secret kept in secret keep
in forest dark and cavern deep.

The abbey of the glutton moon
will flow with blood, the wind in tune
to finish that begun before
and open wide the doomsday door.

The shattered star with seven shards
for seven lords with seven swords
the queen of blue in distant skies
will kindle new the ancient wars.

The seas will rise and men will drown
And what was lost shall claim the crown.

The Scribe begins, "I think the first stanza is likely the next linear place we must focus, but I don't know what that means ... yet.

"Abbey ... wind ... doomsday door .... I don't know yet about the second stanza.

"The third stanza is the Sihedron, which is what as Pathfinders our mission is about. Iluvar and I already carry three of seven shards, and are looking for the next one. The 'seven lords with seven swords' sounds to me like the ancient Runelords of Thassilon, and while they each held a polearm as a scepter and symbol of their power personally, they had lackeys that had special swords that would go out into the land to do their Runelords' will."

He holds out his ranseur, "this is NOT Alazanist - the Runelord of Wrath's - famous ranseur, but is a magical version that was found in a crypt under Magnimar. Even then, it is a powerful weapon, named Xin-Rithux, or 'Hateful Doom' in Thassilonian."

"Back to the prophecy. Everything follows from the first stanza, naturally, and the nature of the shards of the Sihedron are such that each one in succession helps find the other. That is how we knew to come to search for the next in Kaer Maga. But, annoyingly enough, once you get to close - it seems within the area of a city or so - the mental reading is too close and ends up dispersed, so there is no way to hone it in further with the shard, but with good, old-fashioned investigation, research, and persistence."

He turns to Myki and Vargun. "Myki, Vargun .... this is your town. Any idea what the 'owl' or the 'spire of knowledge' might be?"

Vargun says, "I may have a line on that, but let me check my contacts to be sure, and I can go with you. I am curious to attend to Augustille's prophecy. Will you be willing to rest the day while I work, and then I can call on you in a day or two with what I find?"

[Tippnick]

"Retrieving Augustille took a lot of effort from all of us. I will ask for a rest before doing anything else so strenuous." , Iluvar states.

[DrK]

Akif looks relatively baffled by many of the clues, before nodding to Iluvar, "You seem well versed in these riddles. I can rest for a day before we follows this twisting tal in search of more of these stars that you seek." He looks at his brother, "THese small ones are interesting no Sisir?"

[lostsole31]

"In that case, unless someone has their eye on something in particular (and you don't way what that is, by the way), we can hold off on treasure divvy for now," says the Scribe, as all of you head back to the Sorry Excuse to await Vargun's word.

Once there, do you do anything before turning in? With Augustille's "purge time" it is getting rather late.

[DrK]

Akif shakes his head. "None of the trinkets interested me anyway. They can wait. But I was sorely wounded this day and will need sleep to recover" says Akif. "In the morning we can work out what to do next in untangling these strange words."

[lostsole31]

Everyone goes to sleep in their respective rooms for sleep.

That night, there is a faint dinging above The Scribe.

---

Fireday, Gozran 4714 AR (Waxing Crescent)
Weather: 65/ 45 F. Winds N 20 mph. Dry.

Everyone wakes up for the new day. Does anyone change anything about their daily lineups?

[DrK]

Akif rises, stretching the morning as he prepares for a new day. The night had been restful ad he felt better for the sleep, despite the wounds and battering he had suffered. A brief wash before gtting dressed he heads downstairs to the inn dining room ready for breakfast, despite his current "human size" he still eats for a creature of twice this size.

Spoiler: OOC

Show

No changes to spells or line-up of prepared stuff

[Tippnick]

Iluvar does his meditation and exercise first thing in the morning like he always does. His routine is always the same. After working up a sweat and cleaning up he comes down to join his companions.

[lostsole31]

Everyone gathers, and Myki meets you here as previously agreed upon, and soon you are met by Vargun - who in thanks pays for the room and board thus far, and for three more nights, of the heroes.
And now for her payment, as agreed upon between her and the Scribe, for information is ever a worthy currency ...

While the PCs were rescuing Augustille, Vargun was putting together some pieces of information that have been puzzling her of late. The word on the street is that the Council of Truth—a powerful order of scholars, engineers, and arcanists that vanished without a trace many years ago—has either returned or has been reformed, and people have been seeing the Council’s wide-eyed owl sigil showing up in strange places. Now the Therassic Spire has shut its doors—an unheard-of event for the great institution—and isolated itself from communication with the outside world. Realizing the two might be connected, Vargun called in some favors, and was able to discover that the two organizations have quietly put together a team of adventurers to illegally enter the Undercity in search of a powerful artifact—something they refer to as “the Runelord’s Shard.”

The Scribe listens closely, and using heightened speech and language to clue you in that he is not being conversational, he intones ...

The owl will seek but will not find,
but spire of knowledge pays in kind
in secret kept in secret keep
in forest dark and cavern deep.

Having gotten the table's attention, he explains. "'The owl will seek but will not find' ... sounds like your Council of Truuth, but they have failed, are failing, or are on the path to fail their quest.

"'...but spire of knowledge pays in kind...' refers likely to the Therassic Spire, though what 'payment in kind' means is unknown.

"'...in secret kept in secret keep...' is either unknown to all or known only to a privileged few, and likely refers to the next piece of the Sihedron, the 'Runelord's shard.'

"'... in forest dark and cavern deep...' sounds like more than just the Undercity, but possibliy farther underneath. I am guessing a forest of mineral formations rather than a literal, forest of trees.

"Thoughts, anyone?"

[Tippnick]

"How far does the caverns go underneath this city. But I guess some of the passages we came through getting to this city might take us underneath into the caverns below. Unless anyone local knows a better way to get into the caverns below.",Iluvar ponders aloud.

[lostsole31]

"I think instead of guessing and trying to go in from any old direction, we pay attention to Augustille's prophecy," warns The Scribe. "I think in trying to follow this Council of Truth, they - will they or no - inadvertently show the path. We go in from some completely different direction, Iluvar, we are in danger of Springbloom egging."

Vargun says, "I can take you to visit the ancient library, if that's the way you wish to go."

[Qazgir]

Sisir

"Would this visit to the library be to enter the Undercity to begin our search for this 'Runelord's shard', if such a thing is possible, or an intermediate step to gather information before going forward?

[lostsole31]

"It is the path forward that will reveal which is which," says The Scribe.

[DrK]

Akif nods. "Is the undercity of this place no dangerous. We hear trouble of deaths and people being devoured in the caverns under this place" he adds eyeballing the scribe slightly. "But if the library is where to start then we can about, there is no sense in delaying these things."

[lostsole31]

And with that, Vargun leads the PCs out of the Sorry Excuse and back down to the center pool, clockwise around the inner edges of Hospice right to where it meets Downmarket, but then south away on that central path from there. She leads you through the gated section into the Highside Stacks, an upper-class neighborhood. Here the rich dwell in tall buildings overlooking the Core Districts, far removed from the chaos which characterizes the rest of the city. Some of the inhabitants of the Stacks sequester themselves completely from their neighbors, handling all day-to-day necessities through servant intermediaries.

Continuing south and up you get to the southernmost portion of the Highside Stacks and cross footbridges where a confluence of streams frame the Therassic Spire in picturesque fashion. Often called simply the Great Library, the Therassic Spire is believed by many to be the oldest repository of written knowledge in Varisia. A circular tower eight stories tall, the structure is rumored to extend an equal number of stories belowground. The librarians who run it are a reclusive sect that lives within its walls, and part of the library’s fame comes from the fact that all knowledge is welcome, no matter how trivial, dangerous, or profane—though finding it in the twisting, bizarrely organized stacks is another matter entirely.

When Vargun and the PCs approach, the huge iron-bound doors of the library are shut tight, a small, meticulously lettered sign announcing that the library is closed until further notice. Vargun ignores it and pounds on the door with a meaty fist, keeping it up for a full minute. At last, a panel in the doors slides open, and a pair of beady eyes stare out through ornate metal grillwork. “If you can’t read the sign,” a prim voice says, “then there’s nothing in here for you anyway.”

Vargun lets the PCs take the lead in the conversation. Since it is the Pathfinder's mission and The Scribe is the better conversant, he begins to talk to her, and the librarian does her best to heap abuse on him, but as soon as The Scribe mentions the "Council of Truth," the eyes behind the grating go wide, and then the door cracks open. A hunched human woman in red robes ushers them inside quickly, closing and barring the doors behind them.

The librarian’s name is Koifa (female old human). Once she has asked enough pointed questions to ensure that The Scribe actually knows what he's talking about, she sighs irritably and explains the library’s situation..........

Unbeknownst to most people, the librarians of the Therassic Spire are not the first scholars to take up residence in Kaer Maga, nor are they the best. Far below them, in a subterranean realm called Xavorax, dwells a race of extraplanar researchers and historians known as the caulborn. Much like the giant monument-city itself, the caulborn predate the empire of Thassilon, and even served the runelords for generations before finally being driven below the surface by the calamities of Earthfall.

In recent years, the librarians of the Therassic Spire have occasionally made telepathic contact with the caulborn in order to answer specific esoteric questions, though always at a price.

Koifa attempts to brush past the matter, but when pressed by The Scribe, she reveals that the caulborn consume thoughts and memories, and that their payments always take this form.

Weeks ago, however, the caulborn contacted the librarians directly, offering to help the surface-dwellers recover an artifact of great power—a shard of Xin’s great Sihedron—from another legendary realm below the city called the Dark Forest. In doing so, the caulborn revealed to the librarians something none of the scholars knew: that their own tower contained a secret door, hidden for thousands of years, which leads down into a hitherto undiscovered portion of the Undercity that contained one of Karzoug’s many workshops. The caulborn informed the librarians that if they could send a band of adventurers or mercenaries to meet emissaries from Xavorax in “the chamber of the black menhir, beyond the River of Memory,” the caulborn would aid that band, using the black menhir to transport the adventurers to the heart of the Dark Forest, where the blind creatures’ research has indicated the Shattered Star fragment rests.

Ever enigmatic in their ways, the caulborn had little more to say on the topic, but what they had said was enough. Greedy for the chance to study the item and chronicle its recovery, the scholars agreed, and under the pretense of resurrecting the great Council of Truth, the librarians recruited an adventuring party to travel into the hidden dungeon below to meet the caulborn emissaries. The entire endeavor—to send the recovery team down through the lost workshop to the meeting point with the caulborn, then into the Dark Forest for a quick snatch-and-grab—was supposed to take only a few days at most.

Yet something has gone wrong, and the team hasn’t returned, nor has it apparently reached the rendezvous with the caulborn. Fearful of what they may have awoken in the city’s depths, the librarians set up a constant guard around the secret door, and dare not let anyone into the library for fear that visitors might notice something amiss and contact the Duskwardens. (The whole operation is highly taboo, as unauthorized expeditions into the city’s depths put the whole populace at risk of increased monster activity, and the library wants to avoid responsibility for any death or damage their hubris may cause.)

At this point, Koifa really just wants the whole problem to go away. She fears a possible scandal, and is desperate for someone competent to fix whatever’s gone wrong. The PCs give her hope—if they can delve into the chambers beyond the secret door, find out what happened to the team the librarians sent down there, ensure that the caulborn emissaries haven’t been harmed or otherwise betrayed, and then continue the mission to retrieve the fragment from the Dark Forest, she agrees to let them keep whatever treasures they find in the chambers below, including the so-called Runelord’s Shard.

[Tippnick]

"Of this previous party of adventurers, how many were there and what can you tell of them?", Iluvar asks.

[lostsole31]

Koifa readily answers Iluvar's inquiry. The adventurers that comprised the first, and now missing, expedition: a female human monk named Hasari; a male halfling rogue named Perotus; a male gnome bloatmage named Luonim the Vast; and, a female dark naga named Silasni. Koifa would like to learn what happened to all four of these mercenaries, and would like to have their bodies returned to her care so she can at least see that they’re returned to their people for burial. Koifa knows the ways of adventuring and does not press the matter if some of these bodies return missing pieces of their equipment.

For each body returned to Koifa (provided the body is recognizable as the missing adventurer in question), the librarian promises to pay 1,000 gp. For each living mercenary returned safe and sound, this reward doubles to 2,000 gp per rescue.

[DrK]

As the situation is explained Akif looks intrigued and looks to his brother. ”It is dangerous no for all these little races to build atop things that should remain sealed. But if these Caulborn I have not heard so I would like to meet one.”

As he hears of the other party filled with gnomes and halfling he smirks. “I look forward to seeing this vast halfling. I shall see how vast he is.” He waits to see if the others are ready to head down to the secret door

[Qazgir]

Sisir

Sisir smiles at his brother, "they certainly have a habit of building over what should be left to rest, but that is how the little ones are." Seeing his brother is ready to get started, Sisir addresses the group, "shall we begin our search?"

[lostsole31]

"Alright, you bigoted jackasses," says Myki, "only because you both are now giving whole hog, broad strokes about the 'little races' and what 'we've' built upon. Sit down a second and I want you to think for a second. Who built what over what? What is the origin of Kaer Maga, or is it the way of big races to be dumb? (No offense, Vargun.)"

[Tippnick]

"Before we run off to the depths of caverns. We might need some supplies. Rations, torches and the like.", Iluvar states.

[lostsole31]

"Since this is otherwise unpaid and you have done us Augurs such a service with Augustille, I will take care of that for you, as long as it is very simple. We shouldn't need torches, though, as they are just an extra hand. Between me and the rest of you, surely you have the light, don't you?" answers and asks Vargun. "In the meantime, you can settle this little internal squabble by completely upsetting the titans' world view concerning who built what and when."

[DrK]

Akif grins at Myki shrugging, confident in the Titan's right to rule, but wise enough not say as much. Patting the pockets of his bag he nods, "We have been wandering long. I have food, the blessing of my blood can help with water and we have no need of light" He adds the last tapping the roundel on the shield that springs forth into a bright blue light. "I am ready whenever we are, there is no strife here" he says with a gentle pat on Myki's shoulder.

[lostsole31]

"Then instead I shall return in 30 minutes with some victuals that are friendlier to human palates, and outfitted for exploration," and with that Vargun is gone.

While you wait, The Scribe smiles, looking at Akif. "Non sequitur evasion. Point to Myki. Seriously, though, do you know the history of Kaer Maga, and who built what and when?"

[DrK]

Akif pauses, the shakes his head. ”I do not Master Scribe, My brother and I are wandering to explore and learn of these things.” He looks where the others left, “We have a moment, tell me of the history if you would?”

[lostsole31]

The Scribe begins, as if a professor at a lecture. "Ladies and gentlemen, you are standing in a massive, ancient fortress that just might be the truly last. great. unknown. wonder."

He lets that linger.

"That's not an easy feat. And when I refer to it like that, I am referring worldwide, not just local. Kaer Maga is, as you saw, a cyclopean structure made of 80' high seamless stone some half-mile in diameter in the shape of a hexagon. The massive stone skullworks overlooking the Storval Rise were only duplicated and exceeded through the use of runeslaves in ancient Thassilon, and it is ancient Thassilon that is important here.

"Most of Varisia sits on a kingdom so old it defies description to those who have not yet prepared their minds to understand the scope of history. Half a score of millenia ago, Thassilon was an empire made up of seven confederate parts - each ruled by a Runelord whose rule exemplified one of the classic cardinal sins, which itself is related to our quest, but not to this discussion. Thassilon was wiped out by a massive ecological disaster - called Earthfall - when a Brobdingnagian stone fell from the heavens to land atop Thassilon's parent civilization - the Azlanti Empire. But Earthfall was so widespread that great earthquakes and tsunamis laid all of Thassilon low. Earthfall was what ushered in what is now known as the Age of Darkness ... and it affected humans so as to completely dismantle most forms of civilization for centuries and created the Inner Sea.

"Your people ... your form of life that call yourselves 'titans' .... while impressive so far, are not related to the titans of our mythology, even if you might share some of their power. It was during the Age of Darkness that some forms of life left our world - such as the great retreat of the elven race through the Sovyrian Stone - and some came here. That is as far back as your history goes on Golarion. That's it. No great wars, empires, or the like. Your small numbers and your own feuds with fellow ... what we scholars call 'Strangers' ... and your long lifespan coupled with a tragic birth rate ..... that is your history, always in the shadows, never claiming your own lands for want of the numbers to do so.

"But back to Kaer Maga. Now that you've had a chance to digest that some 10,000 years ago, an advanced human civilization that was 1,187 years old by the time it came to its end, and itself was sired by an even more advanced civilization out in the Arcadian Ocean, the lost continent of Azlant which now are nothing more but a series of broken isles, for all of that ....

".... Kaer Maga predates it all. It is known that the cyclopes had a super-civilization in prehistory, but peoples adorn their arts either with monsters, or more likely versions of themselves. But if you look at the skull stones of Kaer Maga, they have two eyes like humans. An ancient race of ophidian peoples are in Azlanti writings as a great aggressor and having an empire of their own more to the south in modern-day Garund, but again Kaer Maga is human-like skulls with human-like proportions. And from everything that can be determined? Kaer Maga predates even those, long before the rise of man.

"So, were they human? Possibly, given the proper dimensions of the skulls being more human than any other humanoid creature such as giants. But what humans, if so? It is so old, it predates all known civilizations of people.

"Now, as far as the 'little humans' building on top of structures? It's true, in most places. But I am of a mind that Kaer Maga wasn't necessarily built atop something to repurpose it, but that something was built under the already established city of Kaer Maga. Either way, in a few minutes .... we might just see some clues one way or the other."

Spoiler: Perform: Oratory

Show

If you are curious, he absolutely used various bits of dramatic pauses and shifts of voice and scored a 31 on his Perform (Oratory) check, to give you an idea of how well he delivered it.

[DrK]

Akif listens spell bound, a weakness for mythos and great sagas as he loved them and the scribe's tone and intonation was masterful as Akif felt that he could almost feel the impact of the Starfall and the thunderous steps of the Cyclops that built this place. he grins at the Scrbe, "You speak sagas well. I would hear more later when there is time, or as we warm our hands upon a fire as we explore the depths."

He looks at his brother, "We will see if the one eyed ancients built this place? And this Scribe knows tales of our people. This will be a good trip" He stands ready, looking forward to going down and exploring these ancient depths.

[lostsole31]

Koifa, likewise, seems moved as much by The Scribe's performance as by his knowledge

About this time, Vargun returns, but now she is no longer in her long white robe with the belly of her tunic ripped open and bloody for auto-haruspicy, but in a set of dark red studded leather armor. Though most feral trolls are stooped, the civilized trolls of Kaer Maga have learned to walk upright. Though not as tall as the titan brothers when they are not suppressing their natural heights, she is still impressively large at some 14' in height.

She carries no weapons, her armor is sparse above the midriff, and she has no armor along her right arm.

Does anyone do any long-term preparation before the "descent?"

[Tippnick]

Iluvar remembering the last time he went into the depths of Kaer Maga mentally goes through a few mental focusing excercises. He hopes it goes better than the last time.