Re: AAR: [8H] A Spirit of Understanding 2020-11-06 2359 GMT
Posted: Tue Nov 10, 2020 4:07 am
From the writings of Moe'uhane, T'skrang Illusionist, 9th Circle, Boatman 6th Circle, Messenger Rank 6
I've returned from river journeys to Throal at the request of Zivilyn. The adventuring mood within this cavernous city is sombre, more so than expected in a large crypt within a mountain. A number of months ago, a group of up and coming adventurers stumbled across at experiment by madman and were wiped out. Among those, were the father of my companion Vralino, as well as Zivilyn's apprentice Nib. I can tell that this has worn at my tiny windling friend, and for all his magical knowledge he can not understand how someone could unleash such horrendous magics, nor the best way to combat such magics. I had heard the creator was part of a group I have encountered before, The Scourge. We initially believed them to be a loose organization of madmen, but we have obviously underestimated them.
In an effort to better battle the machinations of The Scourge, Zivilyn wishes to accelerate his understandings of magic. He has requested that Sandrin, Norg, LaShana, and myself accompany him on a quest to find a teacher of Nethermancy. He knows of an unnamed troll within the Scytha Mountains. The plan is to request conveyance upon Arngeir as they perform supply runs to retrieve the mineral Sandrin, LaShana, and I had assisted in locating. We would be dropped off near the moot of the Scorched Tusks. As the moot had been the target of a previous Scourge plot, Norg wished to check upon them. He also wanted to show the airships of the Scorged Tusks to Sandrin. I must admit, for a boat out of water, they were suitably impressive. Black ships with ornately carved dragons upon the prow. All was still good with the moot, so we continued up into the mountains.
When we arrived at our destination, we were greeted by a dilapidated three story building. After knocking and calls of greeting went unanswered we were beginning to believe the teacher was not home. However an offhanded comment by Zivilyn received an instinctual response that was cut short, as if the speaker realized the mistake they had made. After a fair amount of banter between Zivilyn, Norg, and the buildings occupant a old hornless troll opened the door. We never got the name of the nameless Troll, probably why Zivilyn referred to him as such. Zivilyn explained the purpose of our arrival, and the old man was quite inquisitive as to the reasonings Zivilyn had for seeking the path of Nethermancy. After some further discussion Zivilyn gave a suitable answer, relaying the fate of his apprentice. The old troll sniffed the air and had a further objection of Zivilyn's pursuit of magic. A short sighted complaint, I understand the belief that you should dedicate yourself to your craft, but the patterns of greatness weave more complex than we understand. Sometimes the calling only fulfills a small part of your pattern, an a new piece of your pattern can become more heard, and another path must be forged to satisfy your full pattern. I speak from my own experience, not as an Illusionist, Boatman, or even Messenger, but as Moe'uhane; that is the name that will come with my legends, my disciplines will be a piece to that legend, but not the sole thing.
Eventually the old man agrees to set Zivilyn to a task to locate an instructor, though not by him, by a female he knows. He advises that we should start by retrieving a suitable introductory gift. He knows just the thing, an engraved skull found within the Field of Mourning, in a valley upon the third highest peak of the mountain range. As we inquire for more information, he is taken aback when he realizes another winding is with us. Dismissing LaShana, he appears to have a discussion with her bow, Whispers, instead. Eventually we get as much as we think we can from him and consult our navigational charts.
It takes minimal time to find the Field of Mourning, though it is quite high and cold. Luckily, Zivilyn has just the right spell to help us push forward. As we start searching in the snow, we come across remains scattered across the field. Each of the remains had a bone that was engraved with markings. Norg's analysis of the remains indicated that the markings on the bones were somehow placed prior to decomposition. I took this information in and analyzed the pattern and spread of the remains. There was an obvious pattern here, the bodies were all in concentric circles with the focal point off a bit from where we were searching. We cleared the center of the circle and sure enough, found a skull covered in designs.
Returning to the nameless Troll, he then directed us to the location of the teacher. We headed down into a valley, with directions to meet the teacher at the cross roads at midnight. We found the location and setup a perimeter around Zivilyn. As the moon approached it's apex we began to detect movement, and then we were fell upon by a horde of constructs. The battle was hard fought, as the magics of our party worked to protect us. Without the protections of Zivilyn and myself, we would have succumb to terror and overwhelming physicial prowess. We continued to fall back into tight groupings, allowing Norg his selection of targets, while I attempted to soften the enemies with Phantom Fireballs. Sandrin provided encouragement as he slashed through enemies. Eventually the Crone Queen was defeated and her minions fell with her. There was not teacher and no answers, but there we knew where to get answers.
We returned to the nameless Troll and found him sitting outside his home circled in bodies of creatures similar to those we had just fought. He was much more lucid now as well. We received the explanation of how the old timer lost his horns. He had a vision of a horror being summoned and destroying to moot, the problem was the person he saw doing it was the chieftain's daughter. Obviously this got him expelled from the moot, and the daughter worked twice as diligent to try and keep the vision from coming to fruition. She focused on astral space, trying to make sure that nothing was coming. But, she tried too many experimental things, and drew too much attention. The prophecy seemed self fulfilling. Three of the trolls of the moot were cursed to continue as Crone Queens, the old timer did not have the power to defeat all three, so he used us as a distraction to deal with one, while he dealt with the rest.
In the end Zivilyn learned what he needed from the old timer and the more direct applied experiences of nethermancy. Hopefully it will help provide him the answers he needs.
I've returned from river journeys to Throal at the request of Zivilyn. The adventuring mood within this cavernous city is sombre, more so than expected in a large crypt within a mountain. A number of months ago, a group of up and coming adventurers stumbled across at experiment by madman and were wiped out. Among those, were the father of my companion Vralino, as well as Zivilyn's apprentice Nib. I can tell that this has worn at my tiny windling friend, and for all his magical knowledge he can not understand how someone could unleash such horrendous magics, nor the best way to combat such magics. I had heard the creator was part of a group I have encountered before, The Scourge. We initially believed them to be a loose organization of madmen, but we have obviously underestimated them.
In an effort to better battle the machinations of The Scourge, Zivilyn wishes to accelerate his understandings of magic. He has requested that Sandrin, Norg, LaShana, and myself accompany him on a quest to find a teacher of Nethermancy. He knows of an unnamed troll within the Scytha Mountains. The plan is to request conveyance upon Arngeir as they perform supply runs to retrieve the mineral Sandrin, LaShana, and I had assisted in locating. We would be dropped off near the moot of the Scorched Tusks. As the moot had been the target of a previous Scourge plot, Norg wished to check upon them. He also wanted to show the airships of the Scorged Tusks to Sandrin. I must admit, for a boat out of water, they were suitably impressive. Black ships with ornately carved dragons upon the prow. All was still good with the moot, so we continued up into the mountains.
When we arrived at our destination, we were greeted by a dilapidated three story building. After knocking and calls of greeting went unanswered we were beginning to believe the teacher was not home. However an offhanded comment by Zivilyn received an instinctual response that was cut short, as if the speaker realized the mistake they had made. After a fair amount of banter between Zivilyn, Norg, and the buildings occupant a old hornless troll opened the door. We never got the name of the nameless Troll, probably why Zivilyn referred to him as such. Zivilyn explained the purpose of our arrival, and the old man was quite inquisitive as to the reasonings Zivilyn had for seeking the path of Nethermancy. After some further discussion Zivilyn gave a suitable answer, relaying the fate of his apprentice. The old troll sniffed the air and had a further objection of Zivilyn's pursuit of magic. A short sighted complaint, I understand the belief that you should dedicate yourself to your craft, but the patterns of greatness weave more complex than we understand. Sometimes the calling only fulfills a small part of your pattern, an a new piece of your pattern can become more heard, and another path must be forged to satisfy your full pattern. I speak from my own experience, not as an Illusionist, Boatman, or even Messenger, but as Moe'uhane; that is the name that will come with my legends, my disciplines will be a piece to that legend, but not the sole thing.
Eventually the old man agrees to set Zivilyn to a task to locate an instructor, though not by him, by a female he knows. He advises that we should start by retrieving a suitable introductory gift. He knows just the thing, an engraved skull found within the Field of Mourning, in a valley upon the third highest peak of the mountain range. As we inquire for more information, he is taken aback when he realizes another winding is with us. Dismissing LaShana, he appears to have a discussion with her bow, Whispers, instead. Eventually we get as much as we think we can from him and consult our navigational charts.
It takes minimal time to find the Field of Mourning, though it is quite high and cold. Luckily, Zivilyn has just the right spell to help us push forward. As we start searching in the snow, we come across remains scattered across the field. Each of the remains had a bone that was engraved with markings. Norg's analysis of the remains indicated that the markings on the bones were somehow placed prior to decomposition. I took this information in and analyzed the pattern and spread of the remains. There was an obvious pattern here, the bodies were all in concentric circles with the focal point off a bit from where we were searching. We cleared the center of the circle and sure enough, found a skull covered in designs.
Returning to the nameless Troll, he then directed us to the location of the teacher. We headed down into a valley, with directions to meet the teacher at the cross roads at midnight. We found the location and setup a perimeter around Zivilyn. As the moon approached it's apex we began to detect movement, and then we were fell upon by a horde of constructs. The battle was hard fought, as the magics of our party worked to protect us. Without the protections of Zivilyn and myself, we would have succumb to terror and overwhelming physicial prowess. We continued to fall back into tight groupings, allowing Norg his selection of targets, while I attempted to soften the enemies with Phantom Fireballs. Sandrin provided encouragement as he slashed through enemies. Eventually the Crone Queen was defeated and her minions fell with her. There was not teacher and no answers, but there we knew where to get answers.
We returned to the nameless Troll and found him sitting outside his home circled in bodies of creatures similar to those we had just fought. He was much more lucid now as well. We received the explanation of how the old timer lost his horns. He had a vision of a horror being summoned and destroying to moot, the problem was the person he saw doing it was the chieftain's daughter. Obviously this got him expelled from the moot, and the daughter worked twice as diligent to try and keep the vision from coming to fruition. She focused on astral space, trying to make sure that nothing was coming. But, she tried too many experimental things, and drew too much attention. The prophecy seemed self fulfilling. Three of the trolls of the moot were cursed to continue as Crone Queens, the old timer did not have the power to defeat all three, so he used us as a distraction to deal with one, while he dealt with the rest.
In the end Zivilyn learned what he needed from the old timer and the more direct applied experiences of nethermancy. Hopefully it will help provide him the answers he needs.