At any other time, Kreemon would have had an extremely difficult time disguising his activities. The wheelbarrows, the one active laundry in town not accepting customers, and above all the stench, would have been too conspicuous to ignore. As it was, though, no one wanted to investigate. There were too many more important things going on. After he'd cleaned enough bodies and wheeled their bones to his hiding place near the boarding house, Kreemon returned home. He wasn't surprised that Ziedonplugin-autotooltip__default plugin-autotooltip_bigZiedon
Ziedon stands a little under six feet tall and is relatively thin. He has a neatly trimmed black beard and mustache which stand out considerably against his pale skin. His hazel eyes seem to see everything around him. Ziedon's white hair is cut short in the traditional townsman's style. Ziedon's garb is of a well-to-do townsman. He normally wears a thin, off-white shirt with eleven pairs of wooden knobs and strings in the front with a brown and green band of cloth was laid across his sh… was absent. With the days passing so quickly, sleep schedules were bound to differ between any two people.
Kreemon was exhausted. He guessed that more than a full day, in his own subjective time, had passed since he'd last slept, and that sleep had been drug-induced and on a stone floor. He collapsed into bed and fell asleep immediately.
Kreemon's eyes shot open. Something was wrong. Anxiety built in him, as if there was too much to do in too short a time. He looked out the window and saw the moons moving slowly but visibly across the sky. Time was wrong, but he'd already known that. No, now he didn't just know it; he felt it. He was dragging himself along at a snail's pace as the world passed him by, and the Zioth crept ever closer.
Something was there. He saw it out of the corner of his eye, but when he turned his head, it was gone. Kreemon looked around, puzzled, and then looked back out the window at the moons in the sky. They were where he'd left them.
There it was again. A shadow, or an outline of a shadow, or… something. Something was there, until he looked directly at it. Then it was gone.
Kreemon looked straight ahead, using his peripheral vision to determine what he was seeing. He moved towards it sideways. He listened intently and breathed deeply through his nose. There was a smell, and sound too, though nothing he could identify. His ears tingled as if he was feeling rather than hearing. He moved towards it.
The vague, shadowy form resisted, just a bit. It was cold, and sharp, though not painfully so.
Kreemon continued towards the shadow, not looking directly at it, reaching out with his senses to embrace it.
He was no longer in his room. He saw the room out of the corner of his eye, but he was in another place entirely, and there was a path – not the clear trail that would ordinarily be described with that word, but a path nonetheless. He knew which way it went. Down the stairs, across the ice – no need to exit the building – and he would be farther away than such a trail could possibly lead him. Was this the Path the Zahiranplugin-autotooltip__default plugin-autotooltip_bigZahira
by Diane Hutton and the DM
The Common View
Zahira is seen as a dangerous cult that welcomes the Zioth and embraces death. It is led by mysterious druid-like entities known as “True Zahirans.” There is quite a bit of legend surrounding these druids, such as their ability to appear out of nowhere, or the fact that they all look alike. had spoken about?
Kreemon kept his gaze averted and followed the Path. For once, he actually felt what he wanted to feel. His senses stretched out before him, describing the road ahead the way a dog's nose would. Before he arrived, he realized where he was going: a nondescript place near the west wall of town. He stepped out and fell knee-deep into a pile of loose ice. This Path had not gone anywhere interesting, but a slew of other Paths stretched out in all directions. Kreemon saw the world with new eyes. Places were connected which hadn't been before.
Kreemon dropped to his knees, tears coming to his eyes. “So beautiful,” he said aloud. He tried to expand his senses, taking in everything he was feeling. There were many Paths to many places, some so wide he couldn't understand having missed them before, and some as narrow as a tightrope, requiring the most precise steps to avoid falling off. The widest, clearest paths led to nearby places, within a few hundred feet mostly. Kreemon believed he could move between them with just a short walk. Others were more difficult, winding, or steeply sloped. Of course, those were half-metaphors. They weren't difficult because of any true physical barrier.
The Zahiranplugin-autotooltip__default plugin-autotooltip_bigZahira
by Diane Hutton and the DM
The Common View
Zahira is seen as a dangerous cult that welcomes the Zioth and embraces death. It is led by mysterious druid-like entities known as “True Zahirans.” There is quite a bit of legend surrounding these druids, such as their ability to appear out of nowhere, or the fact that they all look alike. had sent Kreemon and Koriscaplugin-autotooltip__default plugin-autotooltip_bigKorisca Valym
Korisca would be a beautiful woman if she bathed regularly. Most of the time, her face is soot-covered and her hands are grimy. Her blue eyes stand out as the only colorful feature of her face. Her blond hair is full of dirt and ragged, and is never combed neatly. Even after bathing, which never cleans her completely, she seems to draw the dirt back onto her skin within hours. Korisca is slim and light-footed. She wears a good cloak and breaches, soft boots and a vest. Two knife s… into the past. Somehow, on their journey to Maelbourgplugin-autotooltip__default plugin-autotooltip_bigMaelbourg
[This map is obviously missing a lot. There aren't huge open spaces in Maelbourg.]
Maelbourg is a walled town in the Barony of Huerten, with a population of approximately six thousand. Its primary exports are textiles, wool and coal, the last of which it acquires from deposits in the nearby hills. The land on which the town sits was added to maelbourg index, they had reversed the flow of time. Kreemon just didn't have enough experience to know how to recognize Paths of that sort. They were probably the narrowest, most winding ones, but even that was just a guess.
Were there any paths that led outside the dome that surrounded Maelbourgplugin-autotooltip__default plugin-autotooltip_bigMaelbourg
[This map is obviously missing a lot. There aren't huge open spaces in Maelbourg.]
Maelbourg is a walled town in the Barony of Huerten, with a population of approximately six thousand. Its primary exports are textiles, wool and coal, the last of which it acquires from deposits in the nearby hills. The land on which the town sits was added to maelbourg index? It was hard to tell, but maybe he wasn't close enough. It would take time and practice to identify every path, but once he could, the possibilities would be endless. For now, he stuck with those he could understand. He focused on each of the individual paths around him, extending his senses along the path, to determine where the end of the path lay. There was a finite number that he could sense; they didn't go everywhere, but the shorter they were, the more numerous. With a little practice, Kreemon thought he could go almost anywhere within twenty yards or so. At greater distances, he could guess where a few ended. The dark basement of a house, the inside of a wall (could he survive such a trip?), the ice here and there. What was the difference between one place and another? How could Kreemon match a Path to a known place?
Kreemon picked up a piece of ice threw it down the Path that led to the inside of a wall. Instead of following the Path, it just landed on the ground several yards away. The Paths didn't really exist in the same plane as the normal world. Without him leading the way, there was no road to travel. Afterwards, still in a slight daze, Kreemon took a walk through the town, towards the Houseplugin-autotooltip__default plugin-autotooltip_bigThe House of Morenth
As the primary place of worship for a population of six thousand, the House of Morenth is an enormous structure, perhaps five or six hundred feet across at the longest, but it's not just one big rectangular building. It looks like it's been added to many times over hundreds of years. Whether the building is bigger or smaller underground is impossible to tell. It is known that a library exists under the House, to which access is severely restricted. Expensive glass windows d…. He noted Paths along the way, letting his consciousness run down the lines. When he got to the crowded grounds of the Houseplugin-autotooltip__default plugin-autotooltip_bigThe House of Morenth
As the primary place of worship for a population of six thousand, the House of Morenth is an enormous structure, perhaps five or six hundred feet across at the longest, but it's not just one big rectangular building. It looks like it's been added to many times over hundreds of years. Whether the building is bigger or smaller underground is impossible to tell. It is known that a library exists under the House, to which access is severely restricted. Expensive glass windows d…, he saw that a good number of Paths penetrated the walls, leading into various rooms or walls. One faint, narrow Path even led into the smoldering remains of the library.
His curiosity piqued, Kreemon pulled the hood of his cloak down to cover his face, and followed the Path to the library. Strangely tired from the short journey, he emerged into a pile of rubble. The cloak covering his face wasn't enough. He gagged on the acrid odor of whatever was still burning. He felt increasing heat on his legs and feet. Quickly, he looked around for additional Paths, which he found were just as easy to see with his face covered as not. Some went outside. One went back the way he'd come. Other rooms in the Houseplugin-autotooltip__default plugin-autotooltip_bigThe House of Morenth
As the primary place of worship for a population of six thousand, the House of Morenth is an enormous structure, perhaps five or six hundred feet across at the longest, but it's not just one big rectangular building. It looks like it's been added to many times over hundreds of years. Whether the building is bigger or smaller underground is impossible to tell. It is known that a library exists under the House, to which access is severely restricted. Expensive glass windows d… were accessible, and some went down into darkness. He could see in the darkness, as he'd been able to for weeks. Could it be part of the underground caves?
Kreemon thanked his new-found resistance to heat. It probably turned a crippling limp into mere painful burns. He followed a Path away from the burning library, and found himself even deeper under the Houseplugin-autotooltip__default plugin-autotooltip_bigThe House of Morenth
As the primary place of worship for a population of six thousand, the House of Morenth is an enormous structure, perhaps five or six hundred feet across at the longest, but it's not just one big rectangular building. It looks like it's been added to many times over hundreds of years. Whether the building is bigger or smaller underground is impossible to tell. It is known that a library exists under the House, to which access is severely restricted. Expensive glass windows d…. Insects scurried away at his appearance in a familiar empty room, which came off the older, decomposed library.
Kreemon found himself panting with exertion. The Paths were short, but using them, apparently, could be exhausting. He examined the Paths again, looking for people at the ends, but he could see none. Were they not there, or did the Paths deal entirely with place, hiding people?
Kreemon walked this time, until he was at the collapsed tunnel. Could he see a way through? It was hard to tell; direction wasn't completely clear. A path might seem to go one way to his normal sense of how things should be, only to end up going the other way. Perhaps with time, he'd get better at it. However, two paths did go to dark tunnels that he didn't recognize.
Kreemon paused and then smacked himself in the forehead with the palm of his head. Slipping his skin, he slid into his wolfhound form and explored passages he'd been in before, taking stock of the scents in the air. The overwhelming smells were those of dust and ash. The cave-in from the fire almost completely drowned out everything else, but there was a hint of a scent that wasn't Ziedonplugin-autotooltip__default plugin-autotooltip_bigZiedon
Ziedon stands a little under six feet tall and is relatively thin. He has a neatly trimmed black beard and mustache which stand out considerably against his pale skin. His hazel eyes seem to see everything around him. Ziedon's white hair is cut short in the traditional townsman's style. Ziedon's garb is of a well-to-do townsman. He normally wears a thin, off-white shirt with eleven pairs of wooden knobs and strings in the front with a brown and green band of cloth was laid across his sh… or Kreemon, or Tah'iera or the insects or snakes. Halarenplugin-autotooltip__default plugin-autotooltip_bigPreceptor Halaren
Halaren stands wide and heavy, large feet and hands offsetting a comparably small head. He looks in his late twenties. His skin is pale and a little blubberous, tugging his facial features downwards to give him a slightly sad and dim-witted appearance. His face is well shaved, and hair medium in length, though so thin and wispy his head is clearly visible underneath. Further adding to his girth are the heavy robes he wears, well worn and covered in smudges. A long, deliberate …, most likely, unless someone else had been down here recently. The cave-in made it difficult to tell whether he'd gone that way, but he hadn't gone anywhere else, except briefly into an empty room.
Kreemon became Human again, feeling a sense of relief as his burned flesh was healed as if he'd had a good night's sleep, but he was still tired, both from the very long day – when had he last slept? – and some effect of this new form of travel. He concentrated again, and followed a Path leading beyond the collapsed tunnel. He was disoriented for a moment. He felt weak, clumsy, and even more tired than before, but then he shook his head. Not too tired to go on.
Kreemon's eyes penetrated the intense darkness of the passage. Insects swarmed underfoot. A long tunnel stretched out ahead, and a shorter length behind him stopped abruptly at the cave-in.
Kreemon moved carefully down the hallway, looking and listening, while keeping as quiet as possible. At first, he saw no sign that anyone had been here; the insects had long since covered any trails. But then he noticed a sprung trap, and another. He almost set one off himself, but spotted the tripwire just in time. He followed the winding passage for a long time. Unlike some of the areas he'd explored with Ziedonplugin-autotooltip__default plugin-autotooltip_bigZiedon
Ziedon stands a little under six feet tall and is relatively thin. He has a neatly trimmed black beard and mustache which stand out considerably against his pale skin. His hazel eyes seem to see everything around him. Ziedon's white hair is cut short in the traditional townsman's style. Ziedon's garb is of a well-to-do townsman. He normally wears a thin, off-white shirt with eleven pairs of wooden knobs and strings in the front with a brown and green band of cloth was laid across his sh…, the walls of this tunnel were barely worked at all – just expanded here and there, or smoothed out. He peeked into numerous side-rooms and short passages, where, at most, he found remnants of ancient furniture. Then he turned a corner and saw a light up ahead. As he watched, it slowly dimmed, and then slowly brightened again, as if someone were moving back and forth around a corner. A nearby side-passage branched off to the left.
Ignoring the side-passage, Kreemon kept to the side of the tunnel, and carefully continued forward. He heard nothing but the sounds of insects chittering, and even those became less common as the number of insects decreased. The light continued to pulsate slowly.
After creeping forward about forty feet, Kreemon felt the floor drop a fraction of an inch below him. He tried to jump out of the way, but was too slow. Panels in the walls sprung open, sending broken fragments of wood and metal flying everywhere. A couple pieces looked like the highly corroded tips of darts. Kreemon cursed silently and continued forward, extra vigilant for traps, staying to one side of the tunnel.
The light didn't change, even though Kreemon's position was given away. Perhaps the person was deaf, or maybe it wasn't a person at all. He continued forward, avoiding a few more pressure plates and trip wires. Finally, he saw a turn in the tunnel up ahead, beyond which the light came all the brighter. Scattered all over the tunnel floor were sharp bits of metal – springs, pieces of old blades and unrecognizable shards. While all the other traps seemed designed to delay, like the sleeping poison, or restrain, like the nets, this one looked like, in its prime, it might have been able to cut intruders' legs off.
Kreemon rounded the bend and saw something he had not expected at all. At the end of a short hall was a glass panel, wedged at an angle in a slot carved into the walls and floor, with a large Sign of Morenthplugin-autotooltip__default plugin-autotooltip_bigMorenth
Morenth's theology revolves around the simple idea that the entire universe belongs to him, and humanity is barely worthy to bask in his radiant presence. Those who refuse to acknowledge this simple, self-evident fact heretics, and deserve punishment or death. There is no repentance for heretics engraved into its center. It looked like some kind of door that was meant to slide smoothly down into the floor, but the mechanism had broken part-way down, leaving the door askew. There was a room beyond, which Kreemon could get into by climbing over the door. The door and the room pulsated with light.
Hanging above the door was a small box made from intricate metalwork, with four small bells inside.
Kreemon backtracked to the side tunnel he'd seen earlier. The short passage stopped in what looked like a dead end, but then Kreemon saw what was once a trap door leading into a small room below. The wood from the trap door was mostly rotted away, but it looked like some pieces of it had been recently damaged. Someone had climbed in our out of the hole.
Kreemon examined the trap door, and looked below. It was a fair drop into a small room. A large, thick slab of metal, maybe seven feet high and three wide, leaned against one rough-hewn wall and almost reached another. Long spikes protruded from it at sharp angles, welded to the surface, and many of them looked like they had some sticky substance on them, possibly blood that was a few days old. He lowered himself in, avoiding the spiked slab. It was indeed blood, and some of the insects had taken advantage of the fresh food.
One of the walls was flat, which made it stand out in the tiny, awkwardly shaped cave. The flat wall was darker than the stone around it, and, as Kreemon watched, its grays and blues seemed to move slowly, like dirty oil in a light breeze.
Kreemon looked at the spiked wall, slightly confused. “Shouldn't that be on the floor?” he thought. It actually looked like it might have been pulled off of the flat wall, but surely it would have crushed whoever had been pulling it. He investigated the odd looking wall more closely, and after doing his best to look for traps, checked the wall for any secret opening mechanism. There were no seams or hinges, but when he knocked on it, he felt a gentle tugging sensation, like his knuckles wanted to keep going, into the wall.
Kreemon pushed his hand against the wall and watched it go through. Then, in a moment of panic, he realized he couldn't pull it back out. Instead, he was drawn towards the wall, more and more of his body absorbed. In moments, his head went through –
– and he was flung face-down into the ice. He looked back. There was nothing but an old, hollowed-out tree behind him. He was in a forest which had been so damaged by the ice that half the trees no longer had their tops, and many had fallen. The ice had been disturbed all around. Several people had been here, not too long ago.
Kreemon turned around and looked at the tree. There were no slowly swirling colors like inside the cave, but multiple tracks led up to the back of the tree, then stopped.
Kreemon turned into an owl and flew up in the air. His movements were clumsy after all the Paths he had used – he'd probably look like a wounded animal to anyone below – but he made it high enough to find that he wasn't overly far from the east wall of Maelbourgplugin-autotooltip__default plugin-autotooltip_bigMaelbourg
[This map is obviously missing a lot. There aren't huge open spaces in Maelbourg.]
Maelbourg is a walled town in the Barony of Huerten, with a population of approximately six thousand. Its primary exports are textiles, wool and coal, the last of which it acquires from deposits in the nearby hills. The land on which the town sits was added to maelbourg index. That was all the information he needed. He landed, resumed his normal form and pushed through the portal, barely stopping himself before he was flung into the spiked wall.
“So if the portal makes you pass through and someone had placed this spike wall in front of that wall, you'd be impaled when you enter and killed, driven onto the wall with magical force, a 'lock', so to speak. As it would appear has happened to someone, but no body means they didn't die, and the amount of traffic means more than just the priest is down here.”
Kreemon climbed out of the hole and recovered his rope, then returned to the tunnel with the sprung blade trap and climbed over the glass door. He landed on the other side with a thud, sending up a plume of vile-smelling dust. The floor of the odd, octagonal room was covered in the stuff, except where it was marred by recent footprints. At least the ever-present insects hadn't gotten in here.
This room was unlike anything Kreemon had seen under the Houseplugin-autotooltip__default plugin-autotooltip_bigThe House of Morenth
As the primary place of worship for a population of six thousand, the House of Morenth is an enormous structure, perhaps five or six hundred feet across at the longest, but it's not just one big rectangular building. It looks like it's been added to many times over hundreds of years. Whether the building is bigger or smaller underground is impossible to tell. It is known that a library exists under the House, to which access is severely restricted. Expensive glass windows d…, or anywhere else for that matter. Unlike the natural stone floor outside, this floor was tiled with a fortune in glass. Surrounding the a round pit in the center of the room were large, dark-colored glass tiles which were splayed out in eight lines, each ending at one edge of the octagon. The spaces between were filled in with lighter tiles, except for one section, which opened up into a second pit.
While there was a torch sconce in each corner, they were not the source of the pulsating light. Four of the walls, one to either side of the entrance and the two opposite, had glass panels like the one Kreemon had climbed over, and they slowly brightened and dimmed, the embossed signs of Morenthplugin-autotooltip__default plugin-autotooltip_bigMorenth
Morenth's theology revolves around the simple idea that the entire universe belongs to him, and humanity is barely worthy to bask in his radiant presence. Those who refuse to acknowledge this simple, self-evident fact heretics, and deserve punishment or death. There is no repentance for heretics glowing brighter than the rest. In front of each of the four walls was a pile of large glass tiles. One other wall had a glass panel which was sunken slightly into the floor, revealing a room behind it. The last two walls opened into rooms.
Six-inch-thick stone snakes decorated the walls, circling the room. Their paint had mostly worn away. Near Kreemon's feet, a symbol had been drawn in the dust with someone's finger: a square, a circle inside touching each side, and a vertical, diagonal, and horizontal line, each bisecting it.
Without moving yet, Kreemon gave the room a more thorough look. Four glass walls were closed but pulsating with light. They were completely opaque, so there was no way to know if there was anything behind them. The stacks of glass tiles in front of the other four, including where he was standing, sat on large, dark tiles, which were sunken into the floor slightly from the weight of the stacks.
He couldn't see much of what was behind the open doors. The partially open one led into a dark room. A fully open door revealed what might be crates or boxes. The last door had a large pot with a stick coming out of it, possibly a long-dead tree. Kreemon thought he could make out five distinct sets of footprints on the floor, and since a little of the putrid white dust was still hovering in the air, they couldn't have been more than a day or two gone.
Then Kreemon noticed that there were no Paths leading out of this room. Was it a coincidence, or was there something special about this place?
Kreemon tried to lift the stack of tiles at the door where he was standing. He ended up having to move the heavy glass in multiple trips off the large tile. When they were all off, and he stepped off himself, the tile rose slightly, but nothing else happened.
The room with the dead tree was the first place to check out. Kreemon took half a step in that direction, but then noticed that none of the footprints crossed the light tiles, while the dark tiles, splayed out from the center of the room, had been heavily trafficked. Maybe whoever had been here before knew about some trap. Kreemon walked to the center of the room, briefly peering down the deep shaft, and then back to the edge on a different path. It never hurt to be cautious.
From the looks of it, something had long since grown and died in that room. Crumbled branches lay strewn about, and powdery dust that may once have been leaves or moss coated every surface. In the middle of the room was a solid stone desk whose edge was carved in the likeness of a snake, and beyond was an empty bookshelf. When Kreemon stepped past the threshold, he saw a tall closet with a key in the lock against the inside wall, and clay pots, some broken, around the edges of the room. Some pots were in good enough condition that their decorative glaze still shone in the pulsing light with vibrant blues and oranges. One pot barely supported what was left of a trunk of a young tree. Much of the wood had been eaten away by long-dead moss. On a metal table to the right of the door was a large cage containing the skeletal remains of two snakes which had to be six feet long apiece.
A wave of nausea passed over Kreemon as he stirred up some of the green dust on the floor.
The stone desk had been placed so that anyone entering the room would be facing its occupant. It had one open and emptied drawer, also made of stone, and a second empty drawer which lay on the floor. Atop the desk were vials half-full of powdery ink, several metal pen-tips attached to stringy, decomposed feathers, and a pile of gold coins that had been casually left there.
On the floor behind the desk was a rectangular piece of wood, a sheet of maroon cloth and a tiny, fragile-looking sack of something. An open chest was bolted to the bottom shelf of the bookshelf, and the desk drawers had been opened end emptied.
Kreemon tied a rag around his face to keep the smell out. He took the gold and the dried-up vials of ink, then looked at the wood and cloth. The wood looked like it would fit perfectly into the chest, and the cloth on top of that. Someone had probably removed them both. He didn't touch either. They could have been trapped with sleeping dust. He was especially careful when examining the tiny, fragile bag, even going so far as to hold his breath. It looked soft, likely filled with some sort of powder. He took out a knife and carefully slit the bag open, holding his breath, one hand providing cover for his eyes. Even with all his precautions, the fine dust that rose out of the sack made him dizzy and disoriented.
The chest was empty, as were the drawers of the desk, so he got up off the floor and took a look at the dead tree. He'd never seen anything like it. It was probably the result of many generations of selective breeding.
The closet had been left untouched. Kreemon pulled the door open by the key. Inside was a wide variety of fluids in vials of various shapes and sizes. Kreemon saw vibrant blues and greens, dull browns, cloudy mixtures, and many that had separated into two, three or in one case, six layers. Some vials were empty, or just had a bit of black residue on the bottom and a sticky-looking film around an imperfect or cracked stopper. Sizes ranged from a full pint at the largest, down to delicate corked cylinders that couldn't have held more than a couple drops. Containers were made from clear glass, smoked glass, colored glass and metal. There might have been a few of wood at one time, but those had been eaten by the moss that was in evidence all over the room. On the bottom shelf, behind an interior door, were stacks of heavily damaged packages full of powders. Kreemon checked the interior walls of the closet, but didn't find any evidence of secret compartments.
Kreemon left the room and went to the other fully open door. The small, dark room looked like a storage closet. There was a two-inch gap in the floor of the doorway, several inches deep, where the wall had fallen farther than it was probably meant to. The room was mostly empty. To the left were square gaps in the dust – the piles of glass tiles had probably been taken from here. Several empty, open cages of sizes ranging from one to three feet long were piled up behind where the tiles had been. To the right, wooden boxes were piled up, most of them brittle and covered in fungus so long dead that it looked crystallized. In the back was another large pane of glass with a Sign of Morenthplugin-autotooltip__default plugin-autotooltip_bigMorenth
Morenth's theology revolves around the simple idea that the entire universe belongs to him, and humanity is barely worthy to bask in his radiant presence. Those who refuse to acknowledge this simple, self-evident fact heretics, and deserve punishment or death. There is no repentance for heretics on it, leaning against the wall. There was also some difficult to identify refuse on the floor – dirt, splinters of wood, perhaps some string.
The boxes were brittle, but the crystallized fungus held them securely shut. They would have to be broken open to see inside. One small box had been recently pried open. It contained two spools of fine brass wire whose outermost layers had corroded. Through holes in a couple boxes, Kreemon discovered bits of metal, rusted chisels and knives, and even, in a box that had been snapped in half, stacks of sturdy paper.
Kreemon wiped off the dust and looked at the stacks of paper. They were all blank, and while they'd seemed sturdy, the sheets at the top crumbled at his touch. He broke open the other easily accessible boxes, trying to do it so it wouldn't be obvious to someone looking in the room that he'd been there, but that turned out to be impossible. The rotted wood crumbled, and dead, crystallized fungus exploded into dust. What he found was a bunch of random supplies in poor condition – jars of what might have once been caulk, corroded wires, small blades and tools, paper, empty scroll tubes, string, and a lot of unidentifiable mass. He took the spools of wire and left the rest.
After brushing a bit of the dust off, Kreemon tried the last room, climbing over the top of the stuck glass panel. This cave-like room was almost empty, except for a mountain of fine cloth on the floor. There was a rectangular hole in the wall with a panel hanging down. It might have been a secret compartment, but if anything had been inside other than the cloth, it had been removed. Kreemon examined the hole closely, what he could reach of it, since it went quite deep, and found nothing left behind.
Kreemon climbed back into the glass room took a step towards one of the large glass panels that were still closed. As soon as he put a foot on the light floor tiles, they flipped down on hinges. Only his quick reflexes kept Kreemon from tumbling into a deep pit. This looked to be similar to the already open pit on the other side of the storage room, so he got down on his hands and knees and looked down. The bottom, like much of the glass room, was covered in a fine, white dust, but there were large mounds of dust down there too. One recently disturbed mound showed evidence of a large snake skeleton.
Kreemon got up and went to the circular hole in the middle of the room. This one was much deeper, descending into a cavern below which pulsated in the same rhythm as the glass walls. A foot-wide cylinder hovered over the center of the pit, suspended by two sturdy bars from the walls of the shaft. It looked like it had once been flush with the floor, since the two sides of a trap door made up of dark tiles hung down. A stone ladder, carved into the wall of the shaft, descended downward.
Kreemon carefully approached the stone ladder, wary of any additional traps. He took one more look down into the alternately light and dark chamber below before carefully climbing down the carved rungs. With each step, he checked to make sure it would support his weight and wasn't designed to break as he descended. There had been too many traps in this place already not to assume there was one here too.
The ladder was sturdy, and supported him easily all the way down. Each step curved in and down, making for convenient grips. The design would wear quickly, so it probably had not been meant for frequent use. The shaft opened up into a large, irregularly-shaped room, a natural cave that had been modified only slightly from its original form. A trickle of clear water ran from a crack in one of the walls, along a worn-down channel on the floor, and into a small pool in the corner, where it no doubt drained into other cracks and pores. The room was brighter than the glass room above, at least periodically. Floor, walls and ceiling were stone that was almost white, making the entire room seem to glow. Four slots had been carved into the ceiling, and Kreemon could see glass at the top. It seems that the light from the four glass walls above came from here.
Kreemon nearly forgot all these observations when he saw the open glass door at the other side of the room. The chamber beyond was made up of hundreds of reflective surfaces, like an enormous crystal. In the center was a pedestal with a large, pulsating crystal mounted on top, a perfect miniature of the room, and five men surrounded it. Two were obvious foreigners, a very large, muscular man and a thin, lithe one. A whip held by a third man, a few steps back, was wrapped around the waist of the thin foreigner. A forth wore the uniform of the Houseplugin-autotooltip__default plugin-autotooltip_bigThe House of Morenth
As the primary place of worship for a population of six thousand, the House of Morenth is an enormous structure, perhaps five or six hundred feet across at the longest, but it's not just one big rectangular building. It looks like it's been added to many times over hundreds of years. Whether the building is bigger or smaller underground is impossible to tell. It is known that a library exists under the House, to which access is severely restricted. Expensive glass windows d… Guard, but his badge had been torn free of his shirt. And the fifth man was Preceptor Halarenplugin-autotooltip__default plugin-autotooltip_bigPreceptor Halaren
Halaren stands wide and heavy, large feet and hands offsetting a comparably small head. He looks in his late twenties. His skin is pale and a little blubberous, tugging his facial features downwards to give him a slightly sad and dim-witted appearance. His face is well shaved, and hair medium in length, though so thin and wispy his head is clearly visible underneath. Further adding to his girth are the heavy robes he wears, well worn and covered in smudges. A long, deliberate …. All five stood perfectly still like fine wax statues. The entire room shimmered in a faint haze, as if it was behind an impossibly thin gauze curtain.
Kreemon took a step in the direction of the crystal room but then stopped as he took in the scene, analyzing every detail. The big foreigner's clothes were torn and stained with blood in many places. It could have been his blood on the spiked metal slab Kreemon had seen. The men stood around the pedestal, four with hands outstretched towards it, holding small, stone objects Kreemon couldn't quite identify through the haze. Three of the objects touched the pedestal, and one looked like it hadn't quite made it. All five men were armed and most wore shoulder bags or backpacks.
There were no Paths leading in or out of this room, the shaft or the chamber above, at least none Kreemon could see. Kreemon did feel something odd about the room: something he couldn't identify. He stared at the odd scene before him for a while longer before walking away. This was something Ziedonplugin-autotooltip__default plugin-autotooltip_bigZiedon
Ziedon stands a little under six feet tall and is relatively thin. He has a neatly trimmed black beard and mustache which stand out considerably against his pale skin. His hazel eyes seem to see everything around him. Ziedon's white hair is cut short in the traditional townsman's style. Ziedon's garb is of a well-to-do townsman. He normally wears a thin, off-white shirt with eleven pairs of wooden knobs and strings in the front with a brown and green band of cloth was laid across his sh… would have to look at. As he climbed up the stone ladder, he wondered how hard it would be to destroy it. That would be an interesting surprise if the frozen people in the chamber below ever escaped. Kreemon was outside the glass room before he saw any Paths. He stepped through to a spot near the laundry…
…and nearly collapsed. This Path had been particularly draining. Kreemon felt weak, uncoordinated and slow. Each step through the broken ice towards the steamy and foul-smelling laundry was an effort. Inside, he fished one of the clean but still putrid skeletons out, dragging it instead of lifting it. Panting with effort, he pulled out the next and the next until he was done. He shoved them into bags, but then couldn't lift them into the wheelbarrow, so instead he loaded them one by one. When he opened the door again, he realized there was no way he could pull the wheelbarrow over broken ice all the way back to his hidden stash near the boarding house, so he left them behind and walked.
It had been late in the night when Kreemon had Traveled into the Houseplugin-autotooltip__default plugin-autotooltip_bigThe House of Morenth
As the primary place of worship for a population of six thousand, the House of Morenth is an enormous structure, perhaps five or six hundred feet across at the longest, but it's not just one big rectangular building. It looks like it's been added to many times over hundreds of years. Whether the building is bigger or smaller underground is impossible to tell. It is known that a library exists under the House, to which access is severely restricted. Expensive glass windows d…. Now it was evening, on which day he'd be able to tell when the moons rose, but he hadn't been down there for more than a few hours. It was probably still the twenty first. With the people of Maelbourgplugin-autotooltip__default plugin-autotooltip_bigMaelbourg
[This map is obviously missing a lot. There aren't huge open spaces in Maelbourg.]
Maelbourg is a walled town in the Barony of Huerten, with a population of approximately six thousand. Its primary exports are textiles, wool and coal, the last of which it acquires from deposits in the nearby hills. The land on which the town sits was added to maelbourg index split between panic and altruism, most gave the slow-moving man a wide berth, but a few approached and asked whether he needed help. Kreemon shrugged them off and kept trudging alone, step by step. The stairs to the second floor were an effort. He wasn't sure he'd ever been so tired. Inside, he found Ziedonplugin-autotooltip__default plugin-autotooltip_bigZiedon
Ziedon stands a little under six feet tall and is relatively thin. He has a neatly trimmed black beard and mustache which stand out considerably against his pale skin. His hazel eyes seem to see everything around him. Ziedon's white hair is cut short in the traditional townsman's style. Ziedon's garb is of a well-to-do townsman. He normally wears a thin, off-white shirt with eleven pairs of wooden knobs and strings in the front with a brown and green band of cloth was laid across his sh… deeply asleep, exhausted from spending who knew how long awake. Kreemon had no problem letting the mage sleep.