LongestRoad Run9
19 Horse Moon, 1372
- Mirenuth had brought scales of Seth and of Vincent, Seth's kith. Ezel scries on Vincent and gets a read, priests scry on Seth and are blocked. Mentions Freehaven.
- Virton-ites say that Freehaven is an artist's colony and they doubt pacifists would do this kind of thing, but say sure, your party can go there, we'll go here and here. Check in at 12 hours.
- Party sets off for Freehaven (full day travel, arrive 20 Horse Moon in the rain, very miserable.)
- Querca talks to some fellow woodcarvers.
- Sil, Jer, and Oraine go drinking to "gather information", fail, Sil breathes a lot of fire.
- Ezel and LOL head to the Political Thunderdome. Ezel talks to a portal specalist mage who works for the mayor's office.
- Michael heads to the underside of the city, discovering information about the demon/celestial battle that no one seems to know or care about. Also dwarves.
- Message back that all is OK, don't come; sleep.
- 21 Horse Moon - LOL and Ezel jailbreak Vincent out.
- Sil, Jer, Michael, and Oraine go see the dwarves and discover a temple to Bahamut? Sil has a vision and conks.
- Querca visits the mayor's office under the guise of business, and gets an appointment to see the mayors tomorrow. Spends some time in the fields and orchards chillaxin'.
Excerpt from Michael's Journal
I headed to the Temple of Virton hoping that the priests would be able to find a way to release the poor soul that had become trapped in the gem by Gratz's sword.
I don't understand these beasts. I detest the endless power struggles, the destruction caused on all sides, and the sacrifice of the happiness of all the innocents that have been caught up in it. I find myself wishing for the power to end it all, but wouldn't that just put me at their level? If power could truly solve this, then it would just validate the desire for power that lead to all of this. Still, because there are those who desire power, I find myself needing power to protect those that become entangled in the fight. I must press on. I must fight to protect what is right. I feel that my battles will never end. If I don't do it, what right would I have to expect someone else to do it.
It turned out that the priests at the temple were already rather busy attempting to organize a search party for the silver dragon, Seth. Seems that he and Vincent had both disappeared recently. We decided to help out with the search, and Ezel borrowed some of the scales of Seth and Vincent that Mirenuth had just flown over. Evidently he can use them to assist his divining spells.
After a while of listening to priests and paladins "discuss" their plans, I was greatly relieved when Ezel returned with some new information that he had managed to glean through divination. If you asked me last year if I would be listening to advice of a lich, I would have told you to go to hell [Michael uses the general abyssal term for the upper levels of the Abyss]. Of course at the time I didn't expect to be going there myself. It seemed that Vincent was being held captive somewhere in Freehaven. Evidently, they claimed to need Seth in order to save their town. Now the Paladins didn't want to hear any of that. They claimed that there was no way a bunch of pacifist artists would kidnap a dragon. We decided that we were going to head over there and check it out. The others didn't really care as long as we didn't divert their resources.
Freehaven is quite the lovely place. I would have expected as much from a colony of artists. However, I feel that the decadence is a bit excessive. Evidently they have attracted too many people to all fit on the top side of the rock that is their continent, that they have been building on the bottom side as well. The underside was a place for the people who just couldn't afford to be close enough to the center of things on the topside. All anyone had to say about it was that "It's fine. Just not as nice. (So why would you want to go down there?)" Supposedly things in Freehaven had been rather quiet other than some incident that had occurred on the underside, but the mayor said that it was nothing to worry about.
After finding an inn, we all split up to do some investigation on what had been happening in Freehaven recently. I decided to go straight to underside to investigate what this "incident" was since the topsiders were obviously oblivious to anything going on down there. I was surprised to find a tower that had been rather severely damaged by something. The guy working on it said that he heard that there was a battle between big groups of celestials and demons. He was rather surprised to hear that I was more interested in knowing the story than having the building repaired. He kept saying, "Don't worry. I'll have it fixed up soon!" I told him that he should be happy that there wasn't artwork being displayed there yet since it was supposed to open soon as a big gallery for the underside.
He directed me to his brother who had seen the whole thing. He seemed really happy to have someone actually listening to his story. It seems that no one here cared at all that something as major as a celestial and demon battle had occurred right in their city. I really don't know what to think about that. I applaud their peaceful lifestyle and love of art, but their apathy towards everything else is kind of scary. Even islands are strongly affected by changes in the world around them. I also asked the man if he knew of any mining or caves that took place in Freehaven. He didn't know much, but informed me that there are dwarves here that would know much more.
I set off in search of the Dwarves' mining facility. It turns out that they were closed for the night. How do they keep track of time in this plane anyway? It seems rather odd when there is no sun or moon to be seen. Instead, I decided to have a self-guided tour of their mining facilities. I found a few locked doors down their mine shaft. They were both locked, so I did not try to proceed. I thought it best to talk to the Dwarves about it the next day. One of the doors was smaller and looked as though a dwarven door had been set in a place that wasn't supposed to have it there.
After we gathered back at the inn, we reported on our findings. It seems that Freehaven has drifted into a dangerous place between a set of portals that reach into the celestial and demonic planes. Battles had been occurring nearby, but the one on the underside had been the first to take place in the city, threatening its way of life. The mayor claimed that he had managed to arrange for a way to insure that it never happened again. We of course suspect that he has managed to get his hands on the silver dragon orb and plans on using it to control Seth thus forcing Seth into defending Freehaven. The idiot doesn't even realize that hanging onto that thing is going to make himself and Freehaven a bigger target.
The next day we split up again. Ellowyn and Ezel freed Vincent from his wrongful imprisonment. Sil, Jeralyn, Oraine, and I decided to swing by the Dwarven mining facility, ask them some questions, and maybe get a tour. They didn't know too much about how extensive the caverns inside the rock were because they were still progressing in their explorations. I was mainly curious if they had any idea if there were any caverns that would be large enough to hold a dragon. They had some ideas on where such a large cavern may be but nothing definitive. They were happy enough to give us a tour since we were interested.
It turns out that behind the small dwarven door was a much older door that seemed to have draconic writing around it. It looked like it was ready to fall apart at any moment. Evidently when it was first discovered they brought the mayor to see it. He went in and spent a little while inside. When he came out he told them that it was dangerous inside and that it should be sealed. So the dwarves put a new locked door on it. We asked if we could go inside. He said sure, but not to tell anyone. I put up a daylight inside the room so that everyone could see.
Really shiny. There was lots of gleaming metal in the room. Around the room were little alcoves where there were statues of various dragons in different metals. It seemed as though this room might have some connection to the dragon orbs. Sil passed out when she approached the gold dragon alcove. I helped her out of the room with everyone else. From what we could tell it was actually a temple to Bahamut and that it was likely that the mayor had managed to find the silver dragon orb inside it.
We'll get to the bottom of this soon. There has to be a better solution to Freehaven's problem than resorting to this.
