From fire through water to ice

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While we wait to climb the stairs again and face the wrath of the fire…

Red sits and spreads a few of his items in front of him.

He sets the wooden bowl in his lap.

He sprinkles a bit of silver dust into the bowl.

He lets out a few drops of water into the bowls.

He places the blue stone he has on top of the silver dust.

He take out the lens of his bulls eye lantern and sets into the bowl on top the blue stone.

He holds a clear crystal at arm length above the bowl.

Long he spends just sitting in that position. Holding open in his mind and how he is able summon a flame.

Long he concentrates on the effects of water.

Long he concentrates on how he is able to flow between heat and cold.

Long he concentrates on the effects of fire.

Long he breathes.

Long his takes his mind back in time to the crystal with the man frozen. The moment when he touched the crystal and was transported into cold.

Long he takes mind mind back to the cold from the wolf that shielded them from the danger of the Orcs.

Long he dwells on the true distance between flame and ice.

Slowly he evokes and slowly he attempts to bring forth a cold ‘flame’ from within.

An anchor we hadn’t considered

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After we descend from the fire room fleeing from the bats.

“Alexis, we have talked about what ‘anchor’ we might use to return to our own time. We have also talked about how Hedonis is diligently still pursuing us.

We have, up to this point, assumed he was trying to follow in our tracks and head us off on our path to the tear.

But there are more than one way to catch us.

What if he is building a new working. A summoning not of demons, but of us.

Hedonis wants us to return to him, in this time…. with the Tear in hand.

What if we plan on that. We use Hedonis as our anchor. We create a plan to beat him at his own game?

It might be a long shot, but it also might be the one real shot we have to return home with the Tear and to actually keep it.”

Thalia’s Lament

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I was a daughter of the House of Wrens,
Where the wild roses climbed the wall,
I spoke the tongue of root and stone and stream,
The old grove taught me all.

I wore the green robe of the standing circle,
Walked the paths my teachers walked before,
The foxes came to eat out of my palm,
The ravens knew me at my door.

Sweet Corwen waited at the chapel door,
With a ring his grandmother wore,
He built me a trellis of white and red,
Said my roses were what he loved me for.

Oh, stone hands, don’t reach for me now,
Oh, cold eyes, I beg you, allow
One more bloom before the silence comes,
One more spring, before I’m lost to this…

A man in violet robes came calling,
Admired the garden that I’d grown,
He asked me for a cutting of my roses,
Smiled like he already knew my name.

He said the old grove’s magic ran too wild,
Said a gentler shape should hold my power,
I did not know his tongue was poison,
I did not know the binding in that hour.

He led me down to a garden of statues,
Where nothing living blooms with age,
He took the wildness that the grove had given
And twisted it into a cage.

Now Corwen searches every roadway,
My mother tends the beds we made,
They do not know what waits here for them
In this cold and thornbound glade.

I still know the name of every root and leaf,
But my cures cannot undo my own,
So I sing instead, in case he hears me,
In case he finds this garden, overgrown

Oh, don’t come closer, love, don’t you dare,
Oh, don’t look up, don’t meet my stare,
I am not what the wizard has made me seem,
I am still the girl who loved a rose, somewhere…

A Dungeon With A Theme

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As the Crimson Calling crests the stairs and takes in the fire lake, Alexis pauses. He tilts his hat back and wipes his forehead.

“When we first got here, Red said the griffin ‘room’ had a sense of air about it.” He gestures back down the stairs. “Mist. Bare ground. We’d felt air magic before, so it tracked.” Another gesture downward. “Then the next level. All that vegetation. Earth.” He looks out over the fire lake. “And now this.”

The Making of the Fire Room Plan

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After the group has retreated from the eruption of the fire bats from the fire lake, Alexis sits with the Crimson Calling on the steps between the two levels. He adjusts his whip.

“Good. Now we know what’s in the fire.” He looks at Rask, Gustav, and Ca’armine. “First, the bats. Then we try talking to the giant again.” A slight pause. “He must be desperate for conversation by now. Desperate might work in our favor.”

He glances up toward where the giant would be.

“How long does he think he’s been here?”

He lets that sit for a moment, then continues.

“If talking doesn’t work, we have options. That unnatural forest below, we can harvest from it. We could build a ballista again.” He waves a hand slightly. “Long shot.” Alexis looks at Ethelred “But maybe you can find something in that idea worth working with.” He looks at Ca’armine. “Raiden can reach him too. The determined wall of the north, your bolts. That right?”

“If it comes to it, we hit him from range, keep him from throwing those boulders, rest, come back the next day. Repeat. Not my preference, but it works.” A beat. “We might need more food if we’re doing this over days. Gus, you have options. Rask, Carm, you two as well?”

He looks at Gustav, Ethelred, then Rask.

“Any of you have anything that reaches at this range?”

Alexis takes a moment and looks at all his comrades. “But that’s just where I’m starting. Any other ideas? Rushing to the stairs? Blinding the giant somehow if we need to? Something else?”

Orcs as the legions of the downfall

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While the group has a little downtime on the lush forest level in the tower-out-of-time of Nodden-Torr, Alexis muses out loud.

“Something’s been sitting with me.” He waits a moment. “The orcs that tore through Nodden-Torr had black veins running through them. Unnatural. Shadow infused in them, or some-such. Clearly altered by Shasherak. And that shadow creature we fought under Nodden-Torr, same thing: Black veins.”

He glances at the group.

“And Bandesingh uses orcs too. Different mark, same foot soldier.” He glances back. “Why orcs for both of them? Not stink lizards, not hobgoblins, not gnolls. Orcs.” A beat. “Did Bandesingh learn that from Shasherak? Is there a connection between them, or did two men arrive at the same answer separately?”

Another beat.

“There’s a spellbook tied to Shasherak that nobody’s seen in an age. I’d very much like to know where it is. I wonder if it’s being held by the Dark Hand.”

Cut Off From the Raw Power of Aegir

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“There’s something happening here, but what it is ain’t exactly clear.”

While Ethelred crafts his magical compass, Rask keeps watch, cleans his gear, tends to camp, and does his exercises much as he always does when the group camps. He prays to Raiden before and after his exercises and before he settles in for the night. He often joins Ca’armine in ritual prayers to Raiden. Those that might notice such things may see the look of concern and disappointment that occasionally flashes across his face when he uncharacteristically falters during his exercises, or even more rarely stumbles during chores. It is similar to they way he carried himself in the Grasslands on the way to the First Gate, but missing the bitter fury he carried then.

After a few days, and shortly after a round of prayers to Raiden, before settling in for the evening, Rask speaks to Ca’armine and Gustav.

“Ca’arm, do you understand what is going on here?” The question seem somewhat Rhetorical, and the warrior continues before Ca’armine can start to answer.

“I’m cut off from Raiden, or Aegir I guess?

Rask looks to Gustav briefly.

“Mage-Eye did say that my tattoos channeled the Raw Power of Aegir… Like I was in the Grasslands, I’m not as fast or as tough here. It feels like part of me is missing. I’m getting more used to it, but that… worries me that much more.”

Rask pauses and looks at the ranger and then the priest, more sad that worried, really.

“You two can stall call on The Power though, and when you do, I feel that connection again…”

Rask smiles wanly, recalling the comfort Raiden’s protections bring.

“I think Hadonis may not have been completely lying Brothers. This place… something is different here…”

He pauses, clearly asking for Ca’armine and Gustav’s thoughts this time,

“What do you think is going on here?” Rask guestures broadly

History Lesson?

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Four or five days into Elthered’s Compass project, Rask approaches Alexis while Alexis is between tasks and the group is resting after Ethelred has been working on his Magic ‘Compass,’ the in the misty first ‘room,’ or level of this strange place, he waits for Alexis to acknowledge him and then respectfully speaks:

“Alexis, do you think it would be useful to us all to better understand what you know or have heard about Sasherak, this King Illceros, and that ‘Kobos’ place the dwarves,”

Rask pauses and glances down, a little ashamed of having slaughtered the dwarves so brutally,

“mentioned?”

Rask pauses breifly, before resuming his inquiry.

“The Dragon and Spider,” the warrior glances at Alexis’ ring briefly, “they are connected to King Illceros, right?”

“Was… Handonis telling the truth about the Time Magic? Do we really need giant hearts as anchors?”

Rask is confused and perhaps even a bit frightened.

A chair for Ethelred

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After the conversation about the ‘anchor’ dies down. Red’s mind turn to materials.

“Alexis, I want to take apart one of these chairs. Materials might be tight soon. These chairs seem sturdy, worth gathering what I can.

In the past you have been.. reluctant for me to take things apart.

A chair for future makings?”

About to get Shafted

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The group has been awake for a little while, moving through the quiet routines of breaking a camp that was never quite a camp. Eight plush chairs in a room that has no business existing where it does. Everyone present.

Alexis sits forward, elbows on knees, and tilts his hat brim up toward the shaft in the ceiling.

“Before we move, I want to talk about that hole.” He looks up at it for a moment. “There’s light up there. And this room is clean. No debris, no dust, nothing that should have fallen down from wherever that shaft goes.” A pause. “That’s worth understanding before we decide what to do with it.”

He looks around the group.

“Carm, I want to ask you something that might be a long shot. Your connection with Raiden,” he chooses his words carefully, “is there any chance he could tell us when we are? Not where. When.”

He looks back at the shaft.

“And does anyone have a way to learn more about what’s up there before we commit to anything? I’d rather know more than less before we start climbing.”