Memory Palace

Once inside the familiar cave, Thomas gathers the group around him.  "Something that Wong pointed out jogged my memory while we were talking to the dwarves."  Thomas looks at Wong... "you mentioned that the White said right before he took the final lance blow to the chest that we were 'mistaken'.  That word seemed to echo in my head."  Thomas stares off toward the far wall of the cave.  His eyes seem to haze over then close slowly.  Then he begins to speak, as if distant.

"So I searched my memory vaults for the events of the past few months.  I have a room in my mind where I go to think... my memory palace, I call it.  There I walked along the rows of shelves, glancing at small boxes filled with objects and papers.  Looking...looking...ah, there it is, the globe we saw in Stavian’s vault.  Next to it is a box with the green globe found in the White Dragon’s lair.  Finally, in another box, the globe that the Mantis took from the lodge.  Moving them to a table, I laid them out.  All similar.  Two of them, the one from Stavian, and the one from the Lodge, are cloudy, but colorless.  The third pulses green.  Its color seems not to be the only thing that is different.  The green one has some power in it.  Life?  No.  Something else.  It reminds me of something.  I closed my eyes, tightly.  Something, something about this.  Energy.  So then I ran down the stacks of boxes and grabbed a small box.  Then to another shelf.  I grabbed a scroll case.  Then I stopped...  Where is the other….there it is, top shelf, center.  I climbed, pulling a heavy crate down.  I took all of the items back to the table.  With caution I opened the first box, not knowing what exactly I would find, but trusting my mind.  A small white ball sits in the corner of the box.  No, not a ball, a pearl.  A pearl of power.  I set it upon the desk.  Next, I opened the scroll case.  A scroll, no two scrolls... spells.  Magic Jar and Soul Bind.  But they seem altered, not binding souls or life…but some other type of essence.  Then to the last container.  With reservation, I slowly open the last container, a crate with protections on it.  (You see Thomas physically recoil for a moment)  Evil emanate from this... a lich’s phylactery.  But how do these things relate.  It’s all a puzzle, I thought.  Properties of all of them?  The Dragons’ soul in the orbs?  No…that’s not it.  I looked back at the box with the Green orb.  I picked it up.  I  felt like it is looking at me, like IT is examining ME???  Looking at my person, my items... MY MIND.  I put it down carefully.  Then I picked up the orb from the Lodge.  It is clouded, empty.  Perhaps waiting to be filled with light or color.  Context, I think, might be relevant.  I remember the scene where it was found.  Dreng dead, his stunned eyes wide open.  His body lying in a pool of blood. Heschen dead, the look on his face one of melting despair.  The joy on that Bitch Robyn’s face as she holds her prize in her hand.  She notably disregarded the whole party’s disappearance through the tapestry.  She disregarded the incredible death and destruction around her.  Her face with the red tattoo, almost glowing, her eyes focused on the orb.  It’s what she came for; all of the murder... the blood... the deception... the lengths she went to fool all of is. And what shows most of all... her Happiness.  It was all clearly a small price to pay for the orb.  Finally I picked up Stavian’s orb.  It is the same as the one in the lodge, empty, perhaps waiting to be filled.  BUT WAIT... there was more in Stavian's vault... how did I not see this before.  Papers... underneath the orb; notes, scribbled and blurry.  (Thomas' eyes squint hard as if looking directly at the sun)  I forced myself to concentrate on the writings, and then a few words of it came into focus.  'Vault, dragon artifacts.  Story of dragons.  Red, Black, Green, White, and Blue.  Gray.  A battle, a war.  Metal and Chromatic.'  But what does that mean.  Then I remember Lashonna, the expert on dragon lore, said that the orb came to Stavian’s father from Mengkare.  And then one word last word from the note comes through, underlined.  Hermea."

Thomas shakes his head as if coming from a dream and begins to rub at his temples.  It seems that we might need to pay a visit to Mengkare himself.  But how we get there and how we get an audience IF we can get there, I'm not sure.  

Left unattended, what do we do?

As ThorBjorn steps from the stone doorway back into the snow covered streets, the door seemingly closes behind him on its own, leaving the dwarves, and their human companion, inside.  Snow starts to gently fall around all of you as the silence in the town is deafening.

If your memory serves you well, we'll meet again and wait...

“We need to talk….” says the female Dwarf, looking at all of you as she puts her mug of ale on the table in front of the blue dragon head.

A different voice comes from the corner of the room, another female dwarf, wearing some sort of odd hide armor, by the fireplace.  She waives her hand about the room, out the door.  “Looks like we got here just in time.”  She smiles, almost quizzical, “The Dragonknights of Belhaim, right?  Where have you lot been?”  Then glancing at her seated companion, pausing.  “Holy crap, Marnay, these guys, the last we heard of them….when, months ago?   They helped take down the Pathfinder Lodge right?”  She looks at Mal.  “You’re wanted by a lot of people…and with a heavy price on your heads.” 

A thin human walks out of a doorway, nervously, he his biting his nails.

The sitting Dwarf, Marnay, speaks again.  “Phethean, how much?”

“100,000 gold….each”, the human sneers.

Marnay adjusts herself in her chair.  “By the looks of you, and this place, you’ve been busy….what have you been up to all this time?  More murder and chaos?”

The Path Less Travelled . . .

Wong’s journal, entries being made as he travels down the mountain.

Apparently that path is less traveled for many reasons.  After meeting with the village elders, we determined that the village was being plagued by Pixies and Satyrs and Dragons.  Oh my!  

The group followed the directions of the village elders:  a bridge, and cavern . . . wait, there was something else.  A citadel?  Some dwarven stronghold?  Perhaps we can go back that way later. 

At the old wooden bridge over the deep, icy canyon the group met and dealt with a Satyr and many flying pixies with tiny bows.  The Satyr, whose name escapes me, was apparently the same one we had heard of from the village elders, and was involved in the terrible disaster that cost the villagers their children.  He will not be troubling any other villages.  We were not able to engage in any conversation or get any information from it before Thorbjorn started a bloody fight with it.

Further up the mountainside, we fought a pack of harpies.  They were able to work strong enchantment magicks against several members of our group.  One of them filled my very bones with poison.  Fortunately, I survived. 

After attempting to camp in a cave on the hillside, we were attacked with a storm of ice in the middle of the night inside the cave.  The source was apparently a druid who was able to assume the form of some terrible ice elemental and conjure ice and snow to block our vision.  Fortunately, we were able to handle it without losing any Dragonknights.  For we would need them shortly thereafter. 

After finishing the night of interrupted sleep, we pushed through the Druid’s lair and entered a giant cavern.  A pack of ferocious Adlets surrounded brave Thorbjorn, who was slashed almost unto death.  Fortunately, the Dragonknights were able to destroy their pack master.  Unfortunately, that appeared to wake the great white dragon, Sjohvor.

Sjohvor came from the west end of the mammoth cavern with an army of Ice Golems.  While I summoned the Black Tentacles of Evard to bind the limbs of the minions, tiny Kulman Broadtoe made short work of Sjohvor himself.  Tiny, but fierce!

We now ride down the side of the mountain, seeking nothing more than a warm bed and a hot soup.  What could go wrong?

- Master Wong

Here comes the sun...

The trek into the snowbound valley is hard and tedious.  At some points snow barely covers the rocky ground, at others, it is almost thigh deep.  After several hours of hard travel you and your party enter a town composed of several dozen houses, a town square and a lesser stone castle at the center.  The ground appears ice covered, as do the buildings.  The town itself appears to be deserted, with no sign of life.  As you walk through the streets, dawn breaks, and the sounds of wood creaking can be heard behind you.  You see the door to a cellar of a building slowly open….a man peers his head out, yelling to you in a shaky voice “Is….he…gone?”