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March Event Log B: Einjar Excursion
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| 🜙 Mod Note | |||||||||||||||||||||
| The Einjar Excursion's resolution is dependent on the choice of players who are participating in it. After you have read through this post, if your character is going to be part of the Einjar Excursion, please respond to This Comment as soon as possible with the choice that best matches the one your character would choose. The resolution is not dependent solely on players choosing one side over the other, but also on the actions they choose to take. | |||||||||||||||||||||
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| 🜙 Preparation March 8th | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Einjar's population is small in modern times, but the people who remain in the vast cavern city to maintain and protect it are usually in constant contact with Preciposte via falcon. None of the falcons Preciposte has sent to Einjar have made it back in months. The round trip to Einjar and back will take at least 8 days in total and no one is certain what they will find there or if they will even be able to get through the massive, heavily warded doors that can only be opened from within. But if something has happened to the people of Einjar, the threat needs to be discovered before it progresses to Preciposte and Krimnos. It is sure to be a harrowing adventure for those willing to brave the treacherous cliffs to reach Einjar but the kobolds and dwarves residing there might be harboring even more secrets than anyone expected. The excursion organizers recruit a company of Knights from Krimnos, as well as a variety of volunteers to fulfill multiple roles on the journey. Supplies are gathered and divided out among the large company before the journey starts out on foot, and three densely wooled llamas are loaded up with the spare supplies. The excursion team consists of*:
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| 🜙 A Journey's Beginning March 9th-12th | |||||||||||||||||||||
| The trek through treacherous mountain paths is a dangerous and difficult one. The high altitude and freezing temperatures require the company to make frequent stops to rest their lungs and the llamas. Camp is made each night in five shared tents. The Knights split up between two tents, the Preciposte citizens in a third, and the excursion team split among the fourth and fifth tents. Meals of hot stew and stuffed breads are shared around several small magical fires before everyone hits their bedrolls for a rest. Night watches are broken into four rotating shifts so no one is out in the night cold for longer than 2 hours. The night of the 11th the company makes camp atop the impressive ruins of the ancient temple of the mountain giants. The sheer scale of these ruins is humbling and daunting. Scorch marks from dragon fire still mar some of the marble and stone pillars. The descent down the mountain has brought the company to a lower altitude and the ruins themselves are devoid of snow or ice, almost warm under the midday sun. The height is still dizzying and the land is a little more open than is comfortable. The company will have to fend off and defend the camp from cliff hawks, a tribe of porcupine-like carnivorous cave spindles, and a colony of six-foot-tall venomous cave spiders that make the ruins their home, all to get past the ruins to the massive stone and metal doors that bar the entrance to Einjar. | |||||||||||||||||||||
| 🜙 Friends in High Places March 12th | |||||||||||||||||||||
| During their journey through the ruins, the company is ambushed multiple times. One elvish knight is lost to a cave spindle attack, one of the Preciposte tieflings and one of the llamas are carried off by cliff hawks, a Preciposte dwarf loses his footing on some unstable rocks and disappears off the edge of a cliff with the second llama, and another elf knight is severely injured during a cave spider ambush. With only one llama and two tents left and night quickly approaching things begin to look bad for the company and only get worse once the sun sets. A pack of dire wolves appears from within the ruins, distant howls making their numbers impossible to guess but making it quickly evident the company is surrounded by predators still out of sight. As the oversized pack of dire wolves closes in to attack, a family of kobolds armed with slings and small hammer axes appears from the cliffs above. Their ruckus of calls and the metal-banging noise of their hammer axes against their shields drive back the hunting pack. The kobold family scampers down from the caverns above the ruins and joins the excursion company, inviting them back to the warmth of their cavern home, breaking bread with them and sharing a friendly conversation. One member of the family is a strange sight among the short kobolds, towering above his siblings, but the entire family seems to be cheerfully good-natured and happy to share what is theirs with the excursion company. They don't know anything about the recent silence from Einjar, but they offer to lead the company along a safer path to Einjar's doors in the morning. The knights seem uneasy in the cavern, keeping to themselves and discussing maps with one of the regularly sized kobolds. When questioned by one of the elf knights on what exactly he is, the taller kobold gives the company a confused look. "Isn't it obvious?" He asks, head turning almost vertical with a wide, toothy smile and a confused expression. He clasps a hand on his four-foot-tall brother's shoulder, towering above the smaller creature by a full three feet and thinking nothing of it. "I'm a kobold of course." And were it not for the genuine pride on his tongue it would seem a bold-faced lie even to a half-blind dwarf. | |||||||||||||||||||||
| 🜙 The Doors to Einjar March 13th/14th | |||||||||||||||||||||
| The next morning the kobolds press on through the mountain path leading the company of strangers after them with cheerful conversation and horribly off-key dwarvish mining songs. Several of the knights fall behind exchanging hushed whispers between them. Conversation around the campfire that night is tense and muted by all but the cheerful family of kobolds passing around mushroom and egg drop soup and a savory mushroom grog with a powerful, fiery kick. Distant animal sounds are heard throughout the night, along with occasional roars of a larger beast, but nothing attacks the company. The taller Kobold's name is learned to be Monty, and he explains that their family hasn't lived in or even been to Einjar since shortly before the war due to a distaste for the rising demand for crafting armor and weapons and a disagreement with the dwarves that ruled over the city. They consider themselves artisans and jewelcrafters rather than smithies and call themselves 'people of the wild mountains'. At dawn, the company realizes the doors to Einjar are within sight, and less than an hour's distance away. However, It is discovered that sometime during the night the remaining dwarves from both Krimnos and Preciposte have disappeared. | |||||||||||||||||||||
| 🜙 Open Sesame March 14th | |||||||||||||||||||||
| The doors to Einjar are behemoths of metal and stone, built to keep dragons out of the massive mountain cavern city. A river runs at a high force out from beneath the stone doors in two channels, roaring over the cliff in a waterfall not far from there. Stone bridges cross the rushing rivers on either side of the path to the doors, eroded but sturdy. The doors can't be open by force and are covered in ancient dwarvish runes. The dwarves who built Einjar preferred working with their hands and tools over magic, and the Gates to Einjar were no exception. Usually opened from within, they remain silently shut to the excursion company. A large circular depression in the door matches up to a pieced together symbol on the ground before it. Heavy pieces of a solid iron shield broken into seven segments sit in a depression on the path before it. Each is the same size and shape and can be slotted into any of the seven slots on the door.  The segments are labelled with the dwarvish runes for Earth, Fire, Air, Water, Birth, Sanctuary, and Death. To either side of the large door are two armored dwarf statues. The one on the left is a female dwarf standing on a carved rocky platform, wearing a winged helm and carrying a shield in her right hand. The statue on the right is a male dwarf holding a blacksmith's hammer and an axe in either hand, the platform beneath him is worn away by the rushing river. The runes around the depression in the doors reads down from top to bottom: Within Cycle Horizon Beneath Below the depression is the symbol for "Pair". | |||||||||||||||||||||
| 🜙 Einjar's Halls March 14th/15th | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Once the puzzle is solved the doors open to reveal the empty, silent city of Einjar. The great bellows and roaring furnaces are silent and cold and the halls are empty. No bodies, no sound, and no living souls. Food is left untouched and cold on tables, weapons half forged remain on anvils or partially melted into cold furnaces. Everything is left as if abandoned in the midst of a day of work. Deeper in the caverns beyond Einjar's main city buildings, kobold mining tools are scattered about and carts partially filled with raw minerals and gems are overturned, footsteps disappearing unexplainably mid path. An open cavern recently blasted open sits in the deepest point of the mine and within it is a bizarre scene. Dust and lime covered life-sized statues depict a battle between much smaller dragons and very short dwarves with many of the faces carved into expressions of deep rage. At the center is a deep, black pool of water, devoid of reflection or ripples. Around it are the bodies of the missing dwarves that had disappeared from the excursion company earlier in the trip. The depth of the pool can't be measured with sword or stick, and an uneasy sensation overcomes everyone within the excavated room. The beastwoman knight touches the liquid, attempting to examine it, and in that moment a low, ringing sound builds in the room. Chaos breaks out as the elves and the kobold family that unwillingly escorted the company into Einjar burst into a full-scale violent assault on one another, the origin of the sudden fight impossible to determine. The water stills from the rippling touch several minutes later and the fight is broken up, but with both parties convinced the other side started the fight. The elves claim the kobolds know more than they are saying, and the kobold family insists they have never set foot inside of Einjar. The arguments escalate until one of the knights accuses them of harboring a dragonborn, pointing to Monty. They say that Monty needs to be taken back to Krimnos for questioning, to which the kobolds bare their teeth and threaten that Monty will only be leaving with them over the entire family's dead bodies. Whatever decision is made, the overall agreement is that they need to leave Einjar and return to Krimnos with their findings before anything else happens. | |||||||||||||||||||||
| 🜙 Journey Back March 16th-19th/20th | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Following the discoveries within Einjar's halls and some free exploration by the excursion company, everything is divvied up between the survivors and the trek back to preciposte begins. The trip back is tense and uneasy with larger night watch groups and tighter rations. Hunting is necessary to feed the company, and new tents are made from fabrics taken from within Einjar. | |||||||||||||||||||||
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no subject
[ Letters and Trevor don't always get along. And maybe he'd be more testy about that, but it's good to see Alucard this relaxed after everything else. There's been dire moments on this trip, but it's good to be thinking about things other than that horrible place. He taps a finger on the map himself. ]
We could take a look? Or- someone's going to need to look at all the papers.
no subject
[There is no bigger nerd than the nerd who perks up about there being a lot of paper to look at. There's not exactly excitement in Alucard's voice, but there is a bright note that has been present at other points in this excursion.]
We may as well then. Entering mine shafts seems ill-advised at best.
[Another fucking pit, he means.]
no subject
Letters, I think, these ones.
[ Most of them are useless. There's what appears to be loose pages from the first draft of a romance novel. A note complaining in an incredibly passive aggressive manner about a neighbour's noisiness. Recipes. But a few seem more relevant.
The latest dated of Trevor's collection is from late December and appears to be a handwritten letter from the current Queen of Einjar, fixed with her seal and detailing plans to lock down the doors and bar the river in preparation for the Long Night. The final line of the letter wishes the residents of Preciposte and Krimnos good fortune to keep them safe through the treacherous night. There's a letter from the apothecary from a little while earlier, discussing concerns about the unease and agitation of their patients and needing to treat injuries from scuffles among the miners, attributing all of this to people's fear of the upcoming Long Night. ]
no subject
That's a decent cache. Was there more where you got that group from?
[Alucard does sort out the useless things, putting them into neat little piles. The recipes are all together, the romance novel is left be (it seems promising), and then the letters of interest.
As he reads, the dates become apparent. Long Night. The end of the year and the start of the next, everyone in a fucking mountain where darkness is all too common. Alucard tuts, because everyone disappearing during the Long Night would make sense, but...]
If the entire population disappeared during the Long Night, I would have expected evidence of struggle throughout the city. The things that stalk the darkness do not simply grab. They toy with victims first. But at least we have a potential timeframe, and that's something, isn't it?
[He's not pleased about the contents, but this is discovery. It's...nice, to be doing it again.]
no subject
[ And because he wasn't here for the Long Night and only recalls the ones from before, the inconvenient weeks of no more danger than the bitter cold- ]
-things that stalk the darkness? The fuck?
no subject
[Alucard skims another page, tsking.]
Were there other nice looking houses that you missed, by chance? I wasn't able to examine the books in the palace area. I was...distracted, for a little bit.
no subject
[ He points to the letter about the Long Night, then thinks. ]
Lots of shit in- I think it's the doctor's place, probably. Looks like a doctor's place. Records of doctor stuff, probably. And there's a shitload of old timesheets in the office by the mine.
no subject
The feeling would have been amplified tenfold, had you met me earlier in life.
[Questions like so what do you do for a day job? never came up in the race to stop Dracula's madness. Much of their lives didn't, and Alucard realizes this only now. They're almost too close most nights, and how much of Alucard's life is really known?]
Let's start with the timesheets then, that seems easiest. Then the doctor's.
no subject
[ Well. So Trevor's always assumed, anyway. He's never asked. None of them have ever asked, really. Trevor's only ever really given information about his order, or what's relevant to the others not getting in trouble for having him around. ]
Timesheets are- I'll show you where the office is. [ He stands, setting off toward the mines proper. ] 's this way.
no subject
That's also excluding the occasional foray into the black market.
[Alucard looks over at Trevor, waiting for his reaction even as they walk towards the mines themselves.]
Lead the way.
no subject
Can't complain too much. [ He settles on after a little thought. ] Business like that keeps a man fed.
[ There's one problem, when they reach the office. It has a roof. A dwarf-and-kobold-height roof. ]
I'll let you look. Not going crawling around again.
no subject
[Alucard will let Trevor decide if it was death that caused the change in perspective or seeing home without all the things that made it home. Either way, the dhampir's still content. Relaxed. Enjoying everything up until they get to the office.]
Would you like me to open a window so we can keep talking?
no subject
[ TINY ROOMS, HIS OLD NEMESIS. He takes a seat on the ground by the window, his head level with it even while seated. ]
Shit, almost makes it sound noble.
no subject
[Alucard does have to duck a little to get in, but there's a window not too far from the door and he opens it quickly. It's a ridiculous and domestic gesture, and yet it makes him far too happy to do so. Domestic and settled have not been options lately.
He thinks he the timesheets, and as Alucard begins to make a pile of them, he continues to talk.]
Coming to understand the history of a people through maybe one or two objects? If not noble, it was interesting. Your own order must have kept objects of particular importance, did they not?