I caught word recently that A'horangi, LaShana, and Sandrin were putting together an expedition into the Throalic mountains to investigate a possible nest of corruption that they had been obligated to leave uncleared previously. And by 'caught word' I mostly mean that she was on Skyreader Island on Elisen's trail, couldn't find them, and apparently came to collect me instead. Also joining our little group was Moe, who was the only one who hadn't been to this location previously. Apparently they had gone up into the mountains to lead a small army in defeating some nefarious force that was poisoning the mind of someone that Sandrin and another Adept named Lazulin had hoped to learn the path of the Sun Herald from, encountered a small horde of gnashers supported by some sort of crystalline horror that grows spikes from inside your body, and had to return since the army was borrowed and their objective had been accomplished.
Except, of course, for the fact that the place the horrors had been pouring out of had not been cleared. I'd complain more about leaving those sorts of things to fester, but regrettably I've had to retreat on a few occasions myself. Anyways, not wanting to leave an unknown horror-infested cave system alone, I agreed to join them and brought along Haze and Howler as usual. The journey there was fairly uneventful, which isn't too surprising as few things even in the mountains are looking to pick a fight with dire wolves or Windlings that smell like wyverns. Moe provided his usual carpet caravan, and now that Howler has learned to tolerate flying through magical means the trip was much easier than usual. That said, I did purchase some warm clothing to ease the burden of juggling yet another spell as we travelled. It's one thing to hand around a Weather Cloak for a quick excursion, but all day every day does weary the soul.
After a few days journey we arrived in a frozen valley with a small lake in the middle. At one edge of the valley was the opening into the cavern full of horrors, which was rather unassuming actually. I suppose I shouldn't complain about not having to wade through a horde of gnashers to get there, but I was curious to see what I might learn about them now that I've learned a little of Nethermancy. I suppose knowing my luck I'll have opportunities later though. The entrance had statues of what looked like two Namegivers on either side, with a Dragon-like wing almost like an awning above it providing shelter. Figuratively, that is; lack of walls meant that the area just outside the cave mouth was not protected from the wind at all.
We headed in, hiked for a good while illuminated by my Moonlight, and eventually the tunnel opened up into an area full of ruined buildings, some smashed, some that looked like they were being remodelled, and some that had collapsed as the timbers supporting the stone rotted away. In roughly the center was the most intact area, with a sort of curtain wall surrounding what we would later find was a well. Also in the area, 4 boneless masses of flesh oozing their way around making the most awful racket with their fearsome screaming. Haze was quite frightened of them, and as I didn't think his sonic shriek would do much to a pile of horror-corrupted undead meat I had him sit that fight out. It did give me a chance to try out my new enchanted knuckles which did a fair job of empowering the Unicorn Spirit I Invoked to charge them.
The area turned out to be the former central plaza of a small kaer, and I do mean small. Engraved on the walls were pictures telling a story (also some writing in Theran, which I still haven't learned to read. So little time, so much to do!). The people of the kaer had an urgent need for shelter, and were somewhat fortunate to find a Dragon Named Oberon willing to take them in (also willing to leave an obvious entrance to the kaer, apparently, as the Dragon wing and statues outside showed. Given that we had just fought four puddles of Namegiver flesh with no other obvious place for it to have come from, you may understand why I say they were only "somewhat" fortunate).
Then, they apparently went insane while trapped in a tiny cave in the mountains with poor defences, elected a new leader with a giant crown of bone who flayed them alive (and presumably turned them into animate undead goop) with their consent, and stopped engraving things on the walls, presumably because they were all dead as a result of the aforementioned activities.
We resolved to take care of burying or burning the flesh heaps later (I presume eventually rats and worms would eat them, but who knows what eating corrupted flesh might do to them) and looked around further. There was a hole in one side of the cave, higher up on the wall. There were no signs of stairs or ladders, so it stands to reason that area was for the Dragon. We took a quick peek, and LaShana reported back that there were some crystals that reminded her of the horror that grew crystals from within people. I suggested that this might be an opportune moment to prepare a War Party, did my best to protect us from mystic attacks (while also enhancing our own attacks), and we went in.
Now, at this point I should note that I had thought my Lifesense spell would do a better job of sensing potential threats. Obviously, I had not anticipated the possibility that everything in that hole was undead, however, and so we were not especially prepared for the several animate rotting cadavers of small dragons that were prowling this upper cave. Also, most of the crystals that LaShana had spotted were not horrors, just corrupted piles of crystals (which I took note of, because maybe they were horrors in embryo and something of their weaknesses could be learned). The drakes had clearly seen better days, as several of them were missing entire limbs, and between all of our protective magics they had a very hard time causing much harm to us, although their breath caused some damage to my armour. Haze was much more effective here as he set one up for us to take down and left a second one rolling about mostly uselessly as the fight went on.
The fight took a lot out of us, but at the end we were alive, and the crystal and drakes were more dead than they had been when we showed up. Also, when we searched that cavern, there were places where more crystals could have been which were empty (suggesting that a palanquin carrying one that the group had seen the last time they were here was one of many). Also, a giant astral cocoon, roughly Dragon-sized, which was empty of anything but traces of corruption, and a giant cave entrance leading right to the outside. So perhaps we can take some small comfort in the thought that while there may be a corrupted Dragon in the Throalic Mountains (which may or may not be assisted or guarded by crystalline horrors), planning does not appear to be this particular Dragon's forte.
Also, a giant crystal that was not corrupted, covered in arcane wards, with a taste of memories and history about it. At around this point, there was much groaning about Elisen not being there. By which I mostly mean that Isidoros was not there to carry the massive chunk of stone back to Throal, and we were not exactly the most muscular band of adventurers in the province. Still, we weren't about to leave it there, so we improvised; Moe did some of his cheat-y Illusionist magic and connected the doors of the two tents he had brought, we hiked to the farthest point at which he could connect them, rolled the boulder through, and repeated as necessary. I made several of us Grow to Giant proportions when it comes time to push the boulder, and... well, it was still pretty rough going. Still, we got back, and now there's about a billion Scholars who want to poke our giant memory rock, or drill holes in it, or smash it open to see what's inside, and so forth. I shall have to keep an eye on their efforts since I myself am a little curious.Statistics:Posted by Sharkforce — Mon Nov 23, 2020 7:06 am
]]>