Sent with a few corrections and additions by the DM.

...

Loshdain, Eirmont (month 11) 20, 1029

Whilst divvying the treasure, Lani mentions she's considering de-lichifying herself. She says it's served it's purpose, and the timing seems appropriate.

We stay here for a day.

Soladain, Eirmont (month 11) 21, 1029

Lani's cohort, Rohir, raises Safranna from the dead. She's alive again.

We leave. Outside is an "elven" hunting party. The oldest steps forward. The oldest suggests we leave, as we killed father. From what they say, it's likely they'll be raising him from the dead.

We return to our respective places, and go about our lives. Grey goes back to ruling. Lani, who is now employed by Baratkand and has her own tower, followers, etc, does some research.

Zim takes adventurers into the undercity of Serraine, and finds ancient, forgotten rooms, filled with treasure and devices. Due to a legal complication, and after some discussion with the Serraine council, Zim gets to spend it on improvements to Serraine as he sees fit. (Ie, Zim gets the landlord feat.)

Roland and Safranna meander about.

Soladain, Nuwmont (month 1) 21, 1030

Some of us go to visit the Phanatons and Wallara which we met on western Brun ages ago, whilst getting bits for the Star Device.

On arriving and chatting, it appears Phanatons were invaded by Herath. But Herath lost - Herathian mages not being great at the whole guerilla warfare. However, it doesn't sound like much of an invasion.

The Wallara, inscrutable as ever, are going fairly well.

Soladain, Thaumont (month 3) 21, 1030

Via the information network, we learn that the "Herathian invasion" was actually a punitive strike. Apparently some Herathian explorer was killed there by the Phanatons, so a random bunch of Herathians went to kill Phanatons for revenge. They left after they'd killed some Phanatons, and when enough of their number had been killed by the Phanatons to dull their enthusiasm.

Grey and Zim go to the Rajah's Circus. Except it's not really a circus. Instead, it's more of a dance and singing extravaganza. [Read: Bollywood.] It's rather enjoyable.

Lunadain, Flaurmont (month 4) 1, 1030

The Nagpa Archeologist (called Hork) at the North Pole reports there might be a breakthrough at the north pole soon.

We start preparing for a possible adventure there. Some alchemical research is also done by Lani and Pedro, Baratkand's court mage. They develop a pasty mixture that, when applied and activated by body heat and sweat, activates and protects the wearer from the effects of cold for 24 hours. Its main ingredient is powdered fire stone, from the Plain of Fire. It's called Armour Insulation (50gp per medium size creature dose). It's water proof as well.

Lani and Pedro also research Frostbite Salve. It temporarily suppresses up to two points of ability damage caused by frostbite. Lasts one hour, and costs 50gp per dose.

They also develop Meltpowder. One vial melts one cubic foot of ice. 25gp per vial.

Lunadain, Sviftmont (month 10) 1, 1030

Grey gets a call saying that they've found something at the north pole, 2/3 of a mile under the ice.

We gear up and go. Grey, Turia, Zim, Lani, Roland, Safranna, Thorhild, Arni and Thora go. The Nagpa, Hork, takes us to what they've found. We go down several lifts, etc, until we get there.

They've found a metal wall. Very solid. It's slightly curved. It's curved in all directions. It's a sphere. Calculations identify that it's probably only about 100 feet across.

They are digging furiously at the moment. They're digging horizontally around at the moment, and find the curvature changes.

They manage to dig all the way around it by the end of the day. The digging is furious. It isn't a perfect sphere - more of a flattened sphere. At least on the horizontal plane.

Gromdain, Sviftmont (month 10) 2, 1030

They start digging up. Again, not a perfect sphere.

One side of it has heavy pitting.

On digging upwards, they find a raised trough that goes for a while. It looks like someone has melted the metal together to join the trough to the main sphere. We're not sure we could do it with powerful magic.

Tserdain, Sviftmont (month 10) 3, 1030

The start clearing out the top. There seems to be no opening.

It could well be a void ship?

Moldain, Sviftmont (month 10) 4, 1030

They start digging underneath. It is not rounded at all.

Nytdain, Sviftmont (month 10) 5, 1030

More digging. They find a weird, smooth, rounded thing. Like a giant nose.

With more digging, they uncover lips. If it is human scale, then it'd be a 200 foot tall statue. We uncover eyes as well.

The digging continues.

No known civilisation could do this. Anyone that could must surely be able to remember.

It is an armoured warrior, forged of one piece of metal. Except for some decorative buttons.

Nytdain, Sviftmont (month 10) 19, 1030

More digging. We uncover an arm. It's s well crafted that even the elbow is bent in some way.

The hand is holding a weapon. Something with a shaft. The hand and the spear are separate pieces.

Nytdain, Eirmont (month 11) 5, 1030

We follow the spear down for a while, and a hatch is found!

However, the hatch appears to have been fused to the spear due to time. After much effort, it is opened.

Inside is a small space with planes of metal with crystals. All the plates have glyphs on them. There are also runes next to the plates. They look kind of magical, but not quite what we are used to.

We transcribe it, and take the transcription out of the anti-magic area, and cast read magic. It works, which is interesting because they aren't in the language of magic.

Whoever did this had a different understanding of magic than we do. However, there are some points of similarity. The glyphs are to do with containment, energy, control, and evocation. Mostly control. Some of the runes are distortions of familiar runes, some are familiar, most are not.

The runes next to the plates translate under comprehend languages as numbers.

Nytdain, Eirmont (month 11) 19, 1030

We dig out the rest of the spear. The head has a hole in it, about 4 feet across.

People also identify the presence of etching around where the hand is gripping, but we don't what they are due to the hand that blocks it. More runes.

What was this thing designed to fight? A god?

They also find a second hatch in the spear, further down. And then another, 4 in total.

We open them and start transcribing and translating. We find more crystals, and runes for control, but a lot more containment. And a big grey hollow tube that slots into the sphere. It kind of looks a little like a gnomish fuel tank. A giant one. It could probably hold thousands of spell levels.

In total, there are four of these things. This thing could destroy cities.

We notice that none of the metal plates have control glyphs, and none of the crystal plates have containment glyphs.

Nytdain, Eirmont (month 11) 26, 1030

We take one of the fuel cells out. [It's so like a battery!]

It gets hauled out by some nervous dog sled teams.

We analyse it. We have to cast analyse dweomer several times. Lani, of course, casts it. Its purpose is to contain magical energy. It is not clear how it is recharged. However, it is more efficient than the gnomish fuel tanks. It could hold about 5000 spell levels, compared to the largest gnomish tank of 250 spell levels. Hmm. It is currently empty.

Nytdain, Kaldmont (month 12) 5, 1030

We take all of the batteries out, and identify that they are all empty.

Nytdain, Kaldmont (month 12) 12, 1030

We take out some of the control circuits, and analyse them. There are elements related to focus and intensity. Why would anyone bother to design them separately though? Why not just make it into a single magic item? We can see a variety of advantages and disadvantages.

They also find hatches in the thighs of the statue. Two hatches in each thigh, containing more fuel cells.

That's 20,000 spell levels in total so far. They are also empty. What could require 20,000 spell levels? Fighting a god?

Nytdain, Kaldmont (month 12) 19, 1030

Zim and Lani manage to rig up something to put a few spell levels into one (with some risk). It doesn't appear to drain, even when put in the anti-magic area.

Nytdain, Kaldmont (month 12) 26, 1030

The diggers reach ground level. They find frozen grass.

It is standing on the ground. It was not walking when it froze.

The ice in the shadow of the statue is easier to dig. We dig, and find a stone building. Inside are two frozen bodies. They must have died from some kind of high velocity impact on their faces. The back of the wall, at the height of the arrow-slits, are also pitted.

Lani casts Past Life on them, it works, but is missing bits and is not good quality. There are two soldiers, playing some sort of card analogue game. Looking outside they see the big feet, from the statue. They play their game more. Then something causes them to look outside, and then they die, not seeing what killed them.

They were young, clean shaven humans. Their uniforms are green with blue edging. They probably didn't have a high rank. They look kind of northern reaches like - one has blonde hair, the other brown, with pale skin.

The past life also indicates that there was direct sunlight here. Once. But now, there is never sunlight. It seems that this was not always the north pole?

They show signs of partial decomposition. Therefore, they didn't freeze immediately.

The entire front of the pill box is also blasted, as if my a great wind. It's the same direction as the pitting on the statue. One of the workers attempts to take a sample of the statue, and fails, even with an adamantine chisel.

One of them wrote on some paper during the Past Life. It translates as:

SVC

   Check     Date        Time    Status    Initial
    OK       27-10-2014  1557      OK     (illegible)
    OK       27-10-2014  1567      OK     (illegible)

(etc)

Nytdain, Nuwmont (month 1) 5, 1031

We dig more. We find another of the box rooms, empty.

Another path leads to a crumpled bit of metal which was once a sign. Alas, it is blank, the paint long gone.

Nytdain, Nuwmont (month 1) 17, 1031

Further on, we find a pair of statues, small 7' stone versions of the big 200' tall statue. The first one is of a warrior at rest. The second has it's arm shattered, but Hork puts it back together and shows it had a spear raised for throwing. Inscriptions read on the first say "Odir protect us", and the other "Odir strike our foes".

They are at the front(?) door of a low, solid stone building (well, one side of it) with a sloped side wall. The door is a recessed solid metal door. A crystal control panel near the door has been smashed. We hack our way in with an adamantine axe. Inside there is air (not ice), a marble floor, and a circular emblem on the floor writing around it, like a summoning circle. We get the writing translated as: "Skandharian Void Command - the first line of defence."

Perhaps this place was guarding the entrance to the hollow world from the void?

Further in is a desk, behind which are some papers. It appears to be a log of people that have come and gone from the building. Very detailed. Way more than anyone does.

Further in again are a pair of bodies. It looks like they've been stabbed or something. They're frozen and well preserved.

We move the bodies out to cast speak with dead. On one the jaw moves, but then stops. The other one doesn't work at all. Lani tries past life instead. Lani sees them crouched behind a counter. The look shit scared and both have wands clutched in their hands. They leap up and shoot at some people with black uniforms with white trimmings. They then run, as there are many more of them. They run into a shrine, then flee further, but are then killed as they are shot by bolts of what resemble magic missiles from the wands that the enemy have.

All of the black uniformed guys have blond hair. In fact, so were the two dead guys. Everyone around here seems to have pretty Nordic looking features.

It seems spells which use on imprints to items don't work very well, possibly because they have been under the anti-magic for too long. Spells which reply on spirits seem to work (such as past life), but not perfectly.

We go back look more. We enter a room with intact statues (some life sized, some very small), although the room is otherwise bare. There are names under each statue. There is Odir (the statue guy), Baldin, Calelrin, Chamber, Elgath, Fronaus, Hadeen, Hak, Hella, Hersh, Insellageth, Kadis (dwarf), Khoronus (now known as the god of time), Mwajin, Pacwun, Phellia (large breasted woman that acts seductively), Raelralataen, Sacwhynne, Sollus, Thanatos (now known as the god of death), Tilla, Tsartha, Tyrhm, Volketh.

Very interesting. Most are unknown to us. Arni (who is here with us) says that there are ancient tales of a god called Baldur (related to the statue of Baldin?), who was rendered immune to all weaponry. He had only one vulnerability, which was to mistletoe. He was killed by a spear made of mistletoe. Hmm, spear.

The place has been looted. In fact, the whole place has been stripped, including the chairs, maybe for firewood?

On the side, Grey remembers that there is a country from before the Alphatians. The Thonians. The Alphatians had contact with them. Jussinia has not heard of the Thonians. But then, she hadn't heard of the Alphatians before either. Jussinia was from 8000 years ago. She says the magic from her time was different. She shows us some symbols, and one is the same as one of the ones we've recently seen. Perhaps the site we are now investigating was after her time? Moreover, her empire was not always located in a desert. She comments that entire coastlines have changed. From her point of view, everything is all wrong. She also remembers that the Addakkian sound (as it is now called) used to run north-south, but now it runs east-west. She mentioned this before, but she thought she was misremembering.

The place we are now investigating is probably younger than 8000 years old then, but older than 2000 years, which is as far back as our most accurate records go, when the Alphatians arrived.