The Oracle has informed us that in order to destroy the relic, we need to crush it between the Hammer of the Archons, and the Anvil of Light. How hard could that be?
Our next destination is Alphatia. With luck, we won't have too much difficulty locating Thora.
Haven't written in my journal for a while. Well, we had no difficulty getting to Alphatia, and Thora has rejoined us. It's good to know she's alive and well. Apparently we just missed her earlier in our travels within the Hollow World. When we were staying with the Neathar, so was she. Only, she stayed with the tribe that has a fetish for wolves. Of course.
Today we purchased some magical items from the Alphatia enchanter. Things like bags of holding; essentially those items that don't work in the Hollow World. With luck, they'll still work on Mystara, so we could stand to make quite a profit, especially considering the dirtcheap price we paid for them.
We're also travelling to the now ruined previous capital of Alphatia, Sundsvall. Just a little while ago we encountered a group of mages, hard on their luck. They'd been attacked by some bandits near the ruins, so have had to leave in order to recover.
Note to self: beware of bandits.
Wow. Got attacked by a twelve-headed hydra today. Not the most pleasant of experiences.
We'd arrived at the ruins earlier in the day. Although they're ruins, there are still (desperate) inhabitants that live on the outskirts. Even so, groups of people are still leaving the ruins in search of a life elsewhere; supposedly, more and more monsters keep appearing. In fact, there's even meant to be a dragon somewhere nearby, in a swamp near the city.
We purchased a map of the city, and were also given a brief rundown of the city. Several areas of the city are considered safe; some areas are considered far too dangerous to enter. Nonetheless, the inhabitants have tried setting up safe points at fire-slayers stations.
We are informed that there is some government support to excavate the university. There's not much left of the palace.
We stabled our horses and checked out the Aerodrome, where the twelve-headed hydra attacked us. Nasty piece of work. None of us knew that hydras grow back heads that have been chopped of, plus an extra head each time. Well, we dealt with it eventually. There were no casualties on our part.
After searching the area, we came up with one item: a strongly magical porcelain vase, securely paced within a seriously strong chest. The kind of chest that could survive a dozen fireballs. The vase detects as being of the travellers sphere. It is made of porcelain. We'll identify it later.
Oh, I also had a little chat with Melany. She is, apparently, no longer delusional. And yes, she was delusional before. She didn't go into much detail, but the effects were removed during the battle with the Oracle of Zargos. Came as quite a shock to her. Apparently, whilst she was delusional, she enjoyed the prospect of combat. Something like that anyway.
We looked around for more vases, but found none. Likewise, there were no other items to be found, except for the odd potion of flying.
However, we have identified the vase. To our pleasant surprise, it is a military grade Alphatian engine. Insert of potion, and that potion instead affects the entire vessel that the vase is placed within. For a greater duration to boot.
We are pleased.
Spoke to a fellow by the name of Jim. Looks like a scavenger mostly, but we managed to strike a deal with him, once he became willing to talk to us. He'll act as a guide, in return for him getting three shares worth of monetary items.
He informed us that there is a dragon that by all appearances looks like a bird. He's got a pretty good idea of where the lair is. This is another dragon, in addition to the swamp dragon.
However, fist he lead us to a house guarded by some sort of golem. Obviously a big wigs house, considering the size of it.
At any rate, the golem, while not a real threat, was difficult to destroy. Roland had little luck with his mattock, and when he tried his sword, it broke. The only effective spell I had was magic missile.
Almost everyone else just sat back and yawned.
The house made for good looting
Oh, we also found out that the Empress was killed when the palace was destroyed. Of course, she was resurrected.
Dealt with a number of hobgoblins today, one of the significant groups in the city. Only 40 or so attacked, so it wasn't too difficult for us. Especially since we were expecting the attack.
Had the option of joining the tribe after such a victory. But why bother?
Apparently the hobgoblins have an agreement with the local (apparently red) dragon. They give the dragon all the good stuff in exchange for assistance every so often.
Searched around. Found a house with a magical control panel within it. It's some sort of environmental control device. With it one can set temperature, open and close doors remotely, that sort of stuff. It's quite bulky, but I'm sure we could manage to carry it off with us. It doesn't seem to work in other houses.
Well, having dealt with the hobgoblins, we can either go to the dangerous area, where no-one returns from, or we could check out this dragon.
The dragon.
Well, a highly productive day indeed.
The dragon was not a red dragon, but a ruby dragon. And it had placed the illusion of a hawk over itself. Smart thing.
It calls itself Razel. It is quite a convivial, yet mercenary, dragon. It kept asking if we had any enemies we wanted killed, for a price of course.
Razel was quite happy to exchange information. We told him our thoughts and experiences within the Hollow World, and in return, he satisfied our curiosity on various matters.
Archons are upper-planar beings that tend to avoid using weapons. The Hammer and Anvil are obviously blacksmith tools.
Razel worships a deity called Diamond, a deity that embodies the concept of law. Dragons such as Razel believe that there is a neverending struggle between law and chaos, and that good and evil are actually quite recent concepts. In what sounds like a bit of racial prejudice, Razel stated that the metallic dragons are merely offsprings.
Pyre, who definitely used to be a red dragon according to Razel, is the most powerful red dragon on Mystara. Pyre is chaos' representative.
Another interesting belief held by Razel is that the gods are ruled by greater deities, much like a greater god rules Diamond. Fascinating.
We conversed with Razel a little more, but that about summarises what we gleaned. Oh yes, entropy is neither law nor chaos.
We've just about exhausted all there is of interest in these ruins. No-one wants to find out what the dangerous area contains, so we'll be leaving soon.
Oh yes, we did find a grand councillors research library. The traps were ineffective. One of the traps was to teleport the library away. Fat lot of good that did.
We now have eighty or so books. The question remains though: how do we get them to the surface?
We returned to the new Alphatian capital today, where the Alphatian enchanter resides.
Gurzurk informed us that the Sundered Man piece was still located where he had left it, wherever that is. No worries in that regard. In fact, the piece should be a lot more secure in the Hollow World than in Mystara.
It turns out that the console that controls environmental conditions for a house will work if it's taken to another house. It just needs time to adjust. We can sell the consoles to him for a healthy 15000 gold pieces each, and he'll even tell us the location of several more. Moreover, there are lots of little things of value within the ruins that makes spending time rummaging around quite profitable. We'll head back shortly in search of more profit.
Oh, the Alphatian enchanter informed us that artefacts duplicating effects such as teleport still function normally.
Moreover, we have negotiated a deal for T'zaz. We'll take her the Alphatian mages identify spell, a ninth level artifer specific spell that requires no components, automatically identifies all nonartefact magical items (even if they are cursed), and even a little about artefacts. Quite nice. In return, she must return to him 20% of the profits. Apparently it may be the only spell of its sort around.
We'll also take back instructions on how to make a number of magic items, efficiently. Hopefully T'zaz will be happy.
Returned with three consoles today.
Roland and Safranna purchased a number of items. Girdle of giant strength, gauntlets of dexterity. Helpful. They also owe us a lot of money now.
Since it's so profitable (and not that dangerous to us) to explore and loot the ruins, and Lani wants to show the Alphatian mage how to make the feather charm, we've decided to spend some more time bumbling around here.
I'm going to get tutoring on how to research spells from other schools of magic. That'll take six weeks and 600 gold. I'll then get someone to teach me how to cast spells without glowing patterns, at a cost of another 600 gold or so. All worth it though.