Entering Ascore

Year: 1491, Greengrass

Entrance to Ascore

The sun is reaching it's zenith as we ponder a pair of huge ornately carved stone doors cut into a mountain.  Felgolos takes his leave for a few moments, and returns as the golden haired halfling. He lights up his pipe and gestures to the doors, "Welcome to the gates of Ascore".

Leo says that millenia ago, Ascore was an above ground Dwarven stronghold, at the edge of the Narrow Sea.  In its heyday, Ascore was a wealthy and bustling port on the Narrow Sea, standing as the gateway to Delzoun.  The dwarves built their docks and even their ships wholly of stone, on a characteristically massive scale. These mighty vessels, designed for both trade and warfare and nigh indestructible, plied the Narrow Sea.  If the legends are true, these mighty vessels were powered by magic. Up to twenty stone ships could be docked in Ascore at any one time, with thirty or so more out at sea.  Some forgotten cataclysm caused the seas to dry up, and the Dwarfs abandoned their once mighty city.  Over the ages the desert has slowly claimed the city.

Felgolos points again to the doors, "These gates go to an underground tunnel that leads into Ascore".

"Will there be anything other than dragons here?"  "Unlikely"

Felgolos takes a second look at the dragon statue, and shakes his head, "That's a very ancient Dragon, but she looks very familiar".  He pauses, seemingly lost in concentration trying to recall why the statue should be so familiar to him.

I feel it is time we got on with our task.  I go up to the doors and push hard with both hands.  Celery and Leo come and join their strength to mine (although I'm not sure that would be much in Leo's case).  Surprisingly, the doors open easily; as we push them open we hear loud grinding and clunking noises coming from some unseen mechanism.  They seem to open far easier than I was expecting, but then I am infused with the strength of Tyr.  Celery begins to carefully peer inside, but I march on into the passageway, followed by Felgolos shaking his head.  Once inside, the light rapidly disappears and the passageway beyond is pitch black. 

Celery follows us in, and summons light onto my shield to chase away the darkness.  We find ourselves in a passage going steadily down.  The walls on both sides of the passage are decorated with images of battles, and Gods.  Celery and Leo slow down to look, but I march on, "Come on, we're not hear for sight seeing".

We follow the passageway for around 15 minutes when suddenly we hear a loud rumbling and the ground begins to shake violently.  Stone starts falling around us on both sides, and some slams into Celery, knocking her to the ground.  I skip and leap out of the way dodging all the rocks that fall.  After only a few seconds the rumbling and shaking ends.  Celery picks herself up, and looks about for traps but doesn't see any.  In fact, its likely this was a natural phenomenon as there is evidence of previous rock falls.  We continue on, and a short time later we come to another set of doors as big as the ones through which we entered the passageway.

I try pushing these doors, but unlike the ones we entered through, these don't seem to move.  Celery examines the carvings in the doors more closely and notices that there are some ingeniously hidden handholds carved into the stone along both doors around chest high.  Before we try again to open the door, Leo suggests he transmutes into a gas and slips through the cracks in the stone to check whats on the other side.

We all agree it would be best that there are no surprises as we go through the doors.  Leo transmutes into a gas and disappears.  I sit down and polish away some tarnished spots on my armour whilst we wait for him to return.

A few minutes later and Leo rematerialises in-front of us.  "There a many ancient weathered buildings covered by sand going off to the horizon.  Far away in the distance are two massive stone ships, one partially crumbled away. No sign of the blue Dragons!"

The City of Ascore 

With the help of Celery, Leo, and Felgolos, we pull open one of the huge doors, and step back out into the sunlight to catch our first sight of the ruined city of Ascore.

There are a number of buildings close by in various states or disrepair, although one looks almost intact.  We don't make our way to that building immediately, but instead investigate the closest building first.  There is no longer a door which has long since been lost,  nor any roof or ceiling, but the four walls are mainly intact.  The floor is covered in seven to eight inches of sand.  There are runes that look hastily carved, probably with a sharp blade, into one of the walls.  I recognise the runes to be Dwarven and although I am rusty, I slowly read and translate into common for my companions, "Brother of Delzoun, woe has befallen us, Dumathoin guard our hearts now".  It means nothing to me, I never paid attention in class, but Celery says that Dumathoin was the Dwarven God of Secrets and protector of the Dwarven dead.  It seems, that some Dwarves at least, didn't abandon Ascore but met some cruel fate instead.

The next building has sand piled halfway up the sides of the building.  The entrance still has its door, but the sand prevents it from moving.  There is no roof to the building, so I run and jump up and over it's walls and land on the inside.  As I jump up, I see going into a building opposite what looks to me like a large crab crossed with a spider with a long curved tail ending in a cruel barb.  Another creature I know nothing of.  Is this a Sand Demon?  Anyway, inside the building, the sand reaches up to my knees and covers all of the floor.  There are bits of broken and melted metal spread all over in the sane.  I try, but am unable to open the stone door from the inside, so I take my rope secure it to me, and throw it over the wall.  Felgolos scrambles over first.  The rope goes tight again, but suddenly goes slack as a loud thump comes from over the wall followed by a number of expletives from Leo.  It happens a second time, but eventually Leo, and then Celery climb in.  Leo takes a look around and surmises the broken and melted metal looks like scrap from a forge.  It's likely this room once contained a forge.   I search around in the sand, and find two battleaxes, and an ornate scalemail breastplate inlaid with Dwarven runes.  By the time I've finished searching the others have climbed back out of the building. 

I throw both battleaxes over the wall, take the scale mail, and leap back over.  The two axes are quivering in the ground close to Leo, who I show the scale mail to.  "Could this be magical?", but Leo says he'll look later.  He doesn't look very happy, but I don't know why.  Its best not to meddle in the affairs of wizards.

I tell the others of the Sand Demon, but Leo laughs, "Sand Demon indeed".  From my description he tells me it's more likely to be a Giant Scorpion.

In the sky several hundred feet above us and to the west we spy two winged silhouettes playing in the sky.  This must be Anaxaster and Chezzaran, the two blue Dragons who stole Felgolos' pipe tobacco.

We decide to give the Giant Scorpion a wide berth, and approach the building to the south.  This one is heavily damaged.  It appears to be due to violence, rather than the passage of time and the weather.  Inside the building are three still decomposing corpses.  We enter carefully, but they've clearly been dead some time.  There is a brown-haired halfling male, a human women wearing leather, and an older human woman wearing brown robes.  Celery says they have probably been dead for several weeks.  The woman in leather looks like she has been bitten by a large creature and the halfling has scorch marks all over his body.  The older women looks to have been crushed by the roof falling in.  We search their bodies for more clues. Celery finds a golden heart symbol that she says represents the Goddess Sune.  Hidden in the halfling's left boot Leo finds a pouch containing gold and silver, and a small wooden figure depicting a beautiful halfling woman.

Dumathoin's Pyramid

We move east to a building with a big vaulted roof.  As we get closer we see there are holes everywhere in the walls.  We enter at the back of the building into a rectangular chamber that has a large obsidian pyramid rising 3 ft from the floor, but that appears to continue beneath the floor.  The top of the pyramid is flat, as though for an object.  The rest of the room is bare.  Celery suggests that the pyramid looks like a representation of a mountain and is the symbol of the Dwarven God Dumathoin, although there is normally a gem on top of the mountain.  Leo starts running his hands over the surface of the pyramid, and as he runs his hands over its front the pyramid begins emitting a very quiet humming sound and Leo claims it is also giving off magic.

Leo fishes in his robes and pulls out a green coloured gem and places it on pyramid but there seems to be no effect.  Taking off his backpack, Leo rummages around for a few seconds and pulls out a jewelled necklace.  I recognise it as the one that had been worn by Lady Atallia in Yartar.  He swaps the green gem for the necklace.  As he lets go of the necklace, it vanishes, and the sides of the pyramid begin rotating in some very complicated way and open to reveal a plinth inside.  Sitting on the plinth is a skull shaped medallion with 2 bright gemstones in its eye sockets, a ball of tightly bound rusty iron bands, about 3 inches in diameter,  and 3 gemstones.

Leo pauses and speaks an incantation, weaving his hands around the items.  He says they all have some magic, before lifting them off the plinth and placing them in his backpack. 

We go through a door to the north into another room which appears to be an ante-chamber to the one we have just left.  There is a wash basin along one wall, which contains sand and water.  Around all the walls are carvings of Dwarven deities and some runes carved in Dwarvish above the wash basin  read "Clear eyes, have clear sight".

Leo's surprise

With nothing more to interest us in the room, we make our way back around the buildings to the northern most building, avoiding where I earlier spied the Giant Scorpion.  This building seems almost completely intact, the walls are whole and a roof still protects whatever is inside.  We enter the building into a room with plain walls, and a closed stone door leading to the east.  Leo points to some evidence of an earlier battle in the room, but there is no evidence of who, what or when that may have happened.  There is a small covering of sand on the floor, but no tracks.  I briefly see if I can find anything in or under the sand.  Whilst I am searching the sand, Leo opens the door and goes through followed by Celery and Felgolos.  I can hear Leo describing the scene in the chamber.  There is a human corpse on the floor, which appears as though it has been severely scorched by fire and flame.  The corpse lies beneath a broken dragon statue, and there is a book lying closed on the floor.  Leo thinks the book looks like a wizard's spell book.  Felgolos doesn't recognise the broken dragon statue, but thinks its not significant.   There's then a loud whoosh and the stone door slams shut.  A few moments later, Leo comes back through the door gasping, moving a little unstable on his feet, scorched and burnt, and pointing back into the room.  I go and look in, and see Celery unconscious on the floor.  I lay my hands on her, praying to Tyr to heal her wounds and after a few moments she comes round.  She says Leo opened the Spellbook which must have been trapped and triggered an almighty Fireball.

Its getting dark outside so we decide to set up camp in the building and rest until morning.  Once Leo has composed himself, he conjures his magical hut for us to rest in, and then takes out the items he found in the pyramid.  He spends the next hour or so using his magic to identify the items that we found.

Treasure

The pendant is a Medallion of Thoughts.  Leo says it allows the wearer to read the thoughts of certain creatures. You can focus your mind on a creature within 30 feet, and as long as the creature has some intelligence you can learn its surface thoughts —what is most on its mind at that moment. If you concentrate for longer the wearer is able to probe deeper into the same creature’s mind and can gain insight into its reasoning (if any), its emotional state, and something that looms large in its mind (such as something it worries over, loves, or hates).

He says the rusty sphere is an Iron Bands of Bilarro.  When the proper command word Behave is spoken and the spherical iron device is hurled at an opponent, the bands expand and will tightly constrict the target creature. A single creature of up to frost/fire giant-size can be captured thus and held immobile until the same command word is spoken to bring the bands into globular form again. Any creature captured in the bands has one opportunity to escape before the bands hold them firm.

The three gem stones are Ioun Stones.  Ioun stones are named after Ioun, a god of knowledge and prophecy revered by many on Faerun. Many types of Ioun stone exist, each type a distinct combination of shape and color.  The three stones we have found are Ioun Stones of Reserve, Protection, and Awareness.

The Ioun Stone of Reserve is a vibrant purple prism and can store spells that are cast into it, holding them until they are used.  The Ioun Stone of Awareness is a dark blue rhomboid and prevents one from being surprised.  The Ioun Stone of Protection is a dusty rose prism and improves your ability to avoid blows aimed at you.  Leo keeps all the items, activating the Ioun Stones, which slowly orbit his head.

A learned Paladin

Leo's magic tells him the the Spellbook is protected with a glyph of protection which is written in Draconic.  Celery takes a look and says it is the word for "Knowledge".  To open the book you have to say the word of command.  Without a word, Leo stands up and goes back through the door and into the adjoining chamber, closing it behind him.  A few moments later we hear another big whoosh, followed by a whump, and smell charred flesh.

I open the door slightly and poke my head through, and advise Leo he could be there a while, but maybe he should try dispelling the glyph of protection.  With my sage words of advice delivered, I close the door and go back to cleaning my gauntlets.

We can hear Leo speaking words of magic, and moments later a jubilant should of "Yes" accompanies Leo, a little singed, with a huge grin on his face as he returns from the adjoining room.  He's managed to defeat the glyph of protection and has access to the secrets of the book.

With the excitement for the day now seemingly at an end, we share a meal of jerky, dried fruit, hardtack, and nuts.