49. May 19, 2019

Underground beneath the Imperial City

Odette meets us in the Morlock's chamber. She says they are no longer around. She leads us to where she found a temple-like room, that she tunneled into. She thinks it's the room where the invitation to the otherworldly entity was made. The room was old, even then. There's a strange energy in the room. There were murals on the wall, etched in stone; not really a human way of doing things (humans usually leave written records), it's more like how dwarves would do things. But it's all humans in the murals. We think maybe dwarven craftsmen created the room in the first place for humans.

Horic thinks the temple is about 6,000 years old. But the murals are about 1500 years old.

There's one figure that's ambiguous; off in the corner; holding the Dagger of Nylaathria. It actually looks like the blade is mounted on a polearm. But it's the dagger. The people in the mural are all dignitaries...dukes and stuff...observing a pact between the Emperor and the otherworldly entity. The figure holding the dagger is nearly not in the scene—almost like they were being hidden by the artist. In the mural, we realize that in the scene there are murals in the background of the painting...we think they painted over the existing murals.

The Sarcophagus of Morag, the Earth Father

There's a concealed, 5x9 cavity in the floor. Horic thinks the stones covering the cavity are newer than the rest of the floor. (Not like it happened last week; it was done a long time ago.) We remove the stones; there's a subfloor under it, with banded metal to support the stone floor. Under it, is a sarcophagus. There's a picture/relief of someone on it. Horic gasps and staggers backwards. He says “It's Morag; the Earth Father. Dwarves venerate him in song; they don't carve reliefs to him. He was the first dwarf who tunneled and dug, and led dwarves from the bad lands where they were to the fertile underground. He ultimately died to secure the bridge to bring dwarves here. The dwarves venerate him. Morag was huge, said the tales.” From the tales, Horic recognizes the carving. Horic doesn't want to touch it, it would be the ultimate blasphemy.

Horic says that the stories say Morag carried the dwarven people here. Morag was a giant, he was like 8 feet tall.

Looting the Tomb

An augury says the result will be Weal. So Odette and Jessa lift the cover of the sarcophagus while the rest of us cower about 30 feet away, and Horic and Aoife leave the room entirely because Horic doesn't want to blaspheme. There's a mummy in the sarcophagus and it's holding the pole that we saw in the mural. We have a religious ceremony to say “thanks Morag for keeping this safe, we'd like to take this now.” Then we take the stick. The mummy animates. There's a quick fight, which ends when Jessa pulls out the Dagger of Nylaathria and a medallion from Kaerg; Morag stops, retreats to the sarcophagus, and lies down quietly. We cover him back up.

New Visions and Scrying

1. We see the current emperor; Odette realizes we are scrying on him in his study.

2. Jessa moves to another shining patch of light, and we see a writhing, amorphous form that's probably 500 or 600 feet tall, it has eyeballs

everywhere, its pseuodpods have eyeballs, it's terrible. It's in a cavern, which is full of all horrible monsters; trogolytes, manticores, dragons,

hydra...it's terrible.

We are seeing the two individuals who are responsible for the pact.

The Poleaxe of Nylaathria

We know that the polearm can be used to end the pact. A single hit will kill either of the parties involved in the pact. If used on anybody else, it's only a +3 poleaxe that does 1d10+1 damage. If you roll a natural 18-20 it severs a random part (roll percentile dice to see where) of the creature you strike.

A Hidden Staircase

Horic finds a staircase, it's fairly new. It goes straight up. Odette thinks that the chamber we're in is below the palace. We walk around a bit to see what else is here.

The Sacrifices

We hear screams that seem to be coming from underwater. The Poleaxe glows; something comes into the glow; it looks like a projection; we see Imperial guards dragging a half-elven girl into what we realize is the sarcophagus room. An emperor is there, and a guy in a duke's crown. They're in old-fashioned clothing. They shove the screaming girl, who appears to be related to the duke, into the shimmering hole that seems to lead to the cavern of monsters, and shoves her in. ...Then from the distance we hear an underwater scream...see a projection of different guards dragging a different half-elven girl, past the same emperor and a different duke. The projections continue...the girls seem to range in age from about 10 to 20 years old. In one of the projections, Bel and Jessa recognize a duke that they're certain was their great-grandfather. We think that there's one a year sacrificed, probably on a certain date—probably the date of unification, which is in 4 months. We speculate that 24 girls are sacrificed each generation. But this generation, the dukes might have rebelled.

“With their blood, your crown will be assured.” We write to Genard. He thinks that the Emperors have stayed in power, and kept the dukes quiescent and under his control, and willing to sacrifice their half-elf daughters, every generation. The rumors of girls disappearing from this generation, probably true.

We need allies. We need to take down both the monsters who made the pact. Killing the emperor with the Weapon will free the Thelduin.

The emperor returned from his entourage early, because monsters are going nuts. Seems like there was a problem with last year's sacrifice.

The Plan

We will ambush the sacrifice in 4 months. This will allow allies to assemble in the sarcophagus chamber, set up magical protections and traps, catwalks on the ceilings (disguised to look like the ceiling), and then in 4 months we save the half-elf girl and gank the Emperor. Then go through the portal and try to kill the monster, which is expecting a dead sacrifice and not an attack on it.

– Jessa will teach Illial how to use a crossbow.

– Genard will contact agents, and send allies.

– Horic will travel to summon dwarves.

– Aoife will catch up with Calith, and get Druij to send allies.

– Consider “borrowing” the magic-nullifying gem from the hidden room in the Fringe Museum, to try to hide the presence of what's going on.