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March Event Log B: Einjar Excursion
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| đźś™ 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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| đźś™ 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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| đźś™ 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. | |||||||||||||||||||||
| đźś™ 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. | |||||||||||||||||||||
| đźś™ 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. | |||||||||||||||||||||
| đźś™ 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". | |||||||||||||||||||||
| đźś™ 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. | |||||||||||||||||||||
| đźś™ 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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Journey's Beginning ✥ March 9-11th ✥ OTA
Everyone has settled for the night except the people on guard duty. Jon himself had been napping when the previous guard shook him awake. Whatever he had been dreaming had flown away the moment he opened his eyes, and he'd been a little bit grumpy about leaving the bedroll and Daenerys for a few far less pleasant hours outside -- but duty is duty.
Now, he sits out in the cold. He has a skin of wine, but that's for warmth, not for drinking idly: there is no sense in a guard being in his cups. Much of what has passed since he awoke in the marshes has been different than his life had been before, but this -- leading people, some prepared and some not, through the wilds -- is as familiar as anything he can remember.
He isn't the only guard on duty, whether it's because he has a partner for this shift or because a guard for another shift isn't sleeping, and things are quiet, so he turns his head and says, "And you? What's your story? Have you been in the mountains before?"
[11th: Spider Danger]
The first two nights were calm: stew and bread, a tent with Dany and a few others, a few hours' watch during the night. Thank the gods that most of them, for the most part, slept well those first two nights. It's on this third night, camped in the ruins of the giants' temple, that trouble comes.
He has already fought and killed a cave spindle; he has yet to be troubled by cliff hawks. It's been quiet for a few minutes. Then, he stills, listening --
"Do you hear that?"
In the distance, a clicking, chitinous skittering over the stones, the shadow of a spider still far off.
He bloody hates these things.
night's watch!
He's taking any form of distraction from the weather: at Jon's question, the elf turns to look at his watch partner. "I have, but it's been a while. I forgot how bloody cold these things were."
Seriously, it's cold, and the whiny elf is not super pleased about how cold it is. "What about you?"
no subject
But for the moment, the kind of trouble Jon is thinking he is is the kind of trouble that comes into the mountains when the thaw is barely on them and the traveler hates the cold.
He nods at Strange’s question. “Aye, a few times. Used to guide travelers all over — before. Most of my work was in the flatland wilds, but I led parties to Einjar more than once. It used to be so much harder to get anywhere than it is now, but this is like enough to the old days.” A slow shake of his head, and he holds his skin of wine out to Strange. “This might warm you. Just a sip: we have to stay sharp.”
no subject
"I spent most of my time in Didymos before our current situation." There's a wry smile on Strange's face as he explains: it's pretty obvious that by 'our current situation' he doesn't mean 'before they were all up on a mountain together.' "You don't get to spend much time in the mountains when you're living and working by the seashore."
no subject
“What did you do by the sea? These days it feels like a man could make his living by picking through all those crates that have been on the shore, but there was a time when it wasn’t like that.”
no subject
There's a less likely chance that Jon has heard of Lawrence Strange, minor landowner. While Strange grew up rich enough to inherit an estate, there wasn't any nobility or titles in his bloodline. Still, Strange is obviously pleased that he's found someone who he considers a like mind. And as someone who gave up running an estate to go to university, he's not going to judge Jon for his unexpected career choices.
"Of course, I've no idea what happened to Stark. I stopped paying attention to that sort of thing when I went to university—I was a professor, by the way. Taught some classes and wrote a book of my own! As for the seashore, my magic tends towards an elemental bend, so the sea and the shoreline were often good places to practice and give lessons."
The more Strange chats with Jon, the more it becomes apparent that he really likes to talk and will happily fill a silence with chatter of some sort.
no subject
He is pleased that Strange has heard of Ned Stark, but the pleasure fades a little when the subject of what happened to him came up. "My father was killed for his goodness. Now everyone but us from those days is dead, but still -- hard to forget it." And as such, he shifts the topic back to Strange. "What sort of book did you write?"
Jon is sometimes interested in what is in books, but only rarely interested in reading them himself. And Strange's chatter is a way to fill the night, make it a little less cold. Words between watchers in the night can make them feel more like brothers.
It seems to Jon that if they are going to survive, succeed in whatever their mission is, help Idan, they're going to need as much brotherhood as they can muster.
no subject
Talking about his book is a much better subject, even if the subject of the book isn't talked about much anymore. Strange does a quick look-around and quick once-over, just to make certain that nobody else is watching them or listening in, before he leans over to Jon and answers.
"My book was on the dragons. It was a useful topic at the time, but the closed minds of this period means that I can't find the text anywhere."