Adventure of a Lifetime

Next: Demon's Hand

Session 1 of Secrets in the Stone, the 1st episode of the 1st season of A Brighter Sun (Overall session #1).

Took place on February 19th, 2026. PCs were level 5.

Synopsis

SESSION SUMMARY

Session opens with a cinematic depicting greedy adventurers looting a gem, triggering a trap and awakening an ancient entity that absorbs their essence. Players arrive at Phoenix Dawn guild hall in Tyr, survey bustling lunch scene, spot B-class Templar mission to apprehend fugitive architect Haven in the Undercroft sewers. Discuss with Saffron, approach Lumi for sponsorship. Receive approval, psionic suppression circlet, provisions like filtering masks, rations, hog mount, bottle of sweet air, deft gems. Visit Architects Guild crime scene: chronomancy reveals Haven innocent; stone-like basalt mage slew masons via precise force cuts, absorbed ziggurat blueprints into glyph orb before teleporting. Spore network confirms twist to party. Scribe hints at Templar pressure to frame psionics over arcana. Nightfall encounter with Demon's Hand rivals near secret Undercroft entrance.

TIMELINE OF EVENTS

1. Cinematic: Adventurers trigger trap, entity absorbs awakened essence.
2. Guild hall: Players enter, perform music, spot Undercroft mission board.
3. Consult Saffron on Templar quest risks, sewers' dangers.
4. Lumi approves ascension bid, provides legalese scroll, sponsors party.
5. Gear acquisition: Masks, rations, hog, sweet air bottle, initiative gems.
6. Crime scene inspection at Architects Guild: Dwarven map room, split ziggurat model.
7. Chronomancy vision: Stone mage kills masons, scans/absorbs blueprints, flees.
8. Spore net: Party deduces Haven framed, pursues vindication.
9. Morgue check: Confirms arcane precision cuts, psionic cover-up hints.
10. Rival guild ambush tease near midnight entrance.

QUESTS

• Capture Fugitive Architect Haven [Accepted] B-Class Templars mission with special dispensation for city Undercroft. Sponsored by Lumi for ascension qualification. Retrieve fugitive and stolen blueprints. No looting vaults or artifacts allowed.

CHARACTERS & NPCs

• Lumi - Guild Master Short, fiery; sponsors B-class mission, provides psionic circlet, trusts party.

• Saffron - Scholar Drinks chai, discusses quests, knows lore; concerned about Undercroft.

• Rex - Bartender Sobekian with crocodile head, impeccable fashion, serves buffet.

• Hygen - Guild Member Loud storyteller, pounds table with tales.

• Vale - Adventurer Boasts about quests, has fan club including aracachras.

• Brother Boros - Architects Guild Elder Middle-aged dwarf, escorts party, monastic style.

• Paladin Krom - Templar Decorated, oversees crime scene access.

• Akshay - Crafter Provides bottle of sweet air, deft peridot, bold garnet.

• Kalak - Former Sorcerer-King Built Tyr's foundation, tower, defenses; dead but rumors persist.

• Haven - Fugitive Architect Elder dwarf, accused murderer, entered Undercroft via secret path.

• Stone Mage - Mysterious Intruder Basalt-like humanoid, absorbed ziggurat blueprints, killed masons with force.

LOCATIONS

• Tyr City once ruled by Sorcerer-King Kalak, now free with guild halls, markets, and undercroft.

• Guild Hall Multi-tiered stone building in Tyr for training, meals, quests; has great hall, offices, library.

• Undercroft Ancient sewer and water system beneath Tyr, full of lost chambers, creatures, sealed for millennia.

• Architects Guildhall Impressive trapezoidal hall with statues, detailed city map, model of Ziggurat.

• Ziggurat Seven-tiered, rainbow-glazed structure commissioned by Kalak, unfinished.

• Lumi's Office Hot room with stained glass, artifacts, desk from extinct wood, on upper guild level.

• Subterranean Complex Sandstone dungeon with torchlight, maze-carved stone door, gem keystone.

LOOT & ITEMS

• Mask of Filtering (x4) Alchemically treated mask filters airborne toxins, spores, gases. Lasts up to 3 days. Note: Acquired from Myrtle for Undercroft expedition

• Cyanatrix Circlet Thin bronze ribbon suppresses psionic abilities when worn. Note: Retrieved from Lumi's office for restraining target

• Bottle of Sweet Air Unstoppered, creates 10-ft emanation of breathable air, removes odors/gases. Limited uses. Note: Rented via Charisma check from Akshay (A-Class jewelcrafter)

• Deft Peridot (x2) +2 initiative, +2 movement speed, quick draw, dodge, extra move 1/short rest. Note: Gifted by Akshay

• Bold Garnet +2 initiative, +2 movement speed, quick draw, dodge, extra move 1/short rest. Note: Gifted by Akshay to melee user

• Pitcher of Purification Purifies water, useful in sewers. Note: Guild provisions

• Hog with Leash Portable food/cargo carrier, sniff capability. Note: Provisions for expedition

• Dry Rations (x4) 4 days supply. Note: Bread, mushrooms, dried bugs/fruit.

• Chalk For marking navigation in sewers. Note: Viz navigation aid

• Maps of the Undercroft Fairly accurate, verified by chronomancy. Note: Evie library study

• Oil Lamp & Oil 96 oz oil, 10-50 hours light. Note: Viz light source

NEXT STEPS

• Access guarded Undercroft secret entrance with Templar voucher. • Navigate sewers using maps, Guiding Star, chalk marks. • Locate Haven, apply circlet, retrieve blueprints.

============================================================ SESSION TRANSCRIPT

This is fun, but it's not what we need beginning now. Darkness. A subterranean complex of sandstone lit dimly by torchlight. Bickering adventurers sniping at each other in harsh whispers spook at every shadow but still press on in search of treasure. We see them from behind, voyeuristically, as they approach a stone door with strange carvings. Our viewpoint moves forward as if walking toward them. But we cut to the adventurers themselves. One looks worried, another looks tense, but the third looks with wide, greedy eyes at the center of the carvings, which are some sort of maze of concentric circles There's a big shiny gem. Well, look at what we have here, he says. This'll fetch a pretty penny. He takes out a chitinous dagger and starts fiddling with the gem, attempting to free it from its setting. Hurry up, says the fearful one as he glances into the darkness. His tense companion tightens the grip on his obsidian axe. The greedy one is unmoved, taking care to eject the gemstone for fear of damaging it. In this, at least, he shows some sense. Damn. Once again, we see... Oh no. Don't switch devices, please. Cool. Now I can't hear. Do you still hear? Damn it. Let the recording purge this part. Say something. Hello, hello. Something, something. Something. Something, something, dark side. I just can't do that. Can you guys hear me? Yeah. Okay. Well, that sucks, but whatever. Zoom is down. Once again, we see them from another viewpoint, approaching, not walking, gliding. Not at human eye level, but rising to a giant's height. The fearful one scans the darkness, but doesn't see us. The tense one... To his credit, seems aware and arches his head in the hopes of hearing our approach. It is in vain. Close up, we see the greedy adventurer's face locked in concentration. Almost got it. Just about there. So locked in he is that he takes no notice when his nervous companion shrieks in a moment of terror. before his voice fades into the distance. Show yourself, the other calls, brandishing his axe at the darkness. He steals his jaw, ready to face any monster. Nothing appears in the darkness. The whimpering cries of the third adventure can be heard. Oh, please, no, no, let me go. Take the others. I didn't touch nothing, I swear. No, no, ah! He's cut short. To the attacker's viewpoint, we return, and we see a shadow creeping up over the adventurers. A man's shadow. The greedy one has just freed the gem. Oi! He calls to his missing companion. Stop pissing yourself over there and take a look at this! The resolute adventurer finally sees us and charges forth. We wave our hand and he dissolves into ash in an instant, his obsidian axe shattering as it hits the stone floor. At last, the greedy adventurer realizes his peril. He backs up, but soon finds himself against the wall. In a panic, he attempts to climb it, but it's hopeless. Finally surrendering, he shrinks to his seat, tears welling up as he stammers. Here, here! It's yours! Don't hurt me! The keystone levitates from the man's outstretched hand and into our gray, stone-like grasp. We consider it. But then our eyes move to the wall. The carvings are glowing with eldritch light. Its intensity building. Even the adventurer is noticed, but he judges us the bigger threat. To his astonishment, we don't obliterate him with a thought. In desperate hope, he shakily rises to his feet. Thank you, sir. All just be on my way, then. But after a single step, he freezes in his tracks. Not our doing. We knew this would happen, and we await the inevitable. The man seizes as the eldritch light fills him. He screams in pain, but his voice fades into another man's, sounding as if echoing from some other plane. The body emanates light so powerful, it illuminates the entire dungeon. Its voice echoes... And before it can relish its newfound resurgence, we extend our hand. As the man's body starts to disintegrate, the voice within screams in defiance and astonishment as it resists. But we are ready. He is unbalanced, unprepared. Our spell is simple, but quite unbreakable. He is unmade, and as the useless body turns to ash, the essence within, we absorb, complementing our own considerable power. We feel the final vestige of the mind within, its powers failing, bleeding with the powers that be to save it. We take that soul fragment within our hand. We extinguish it. It didn't sink. So happy! Fun! Alright, wait. Okay. Aethis is not a world that rewards hope. It burns it, tests it, grinds it down beneath sun-scorched stone on cruel necessity until only the most stubborn fragments remain. And yet, even here, beneath the sun that never forgives, people still look upward. They still dream of something better. The city of Tyr was once ruled by a god-king, a sorcerer whose will shaped law, stone, magic, and life itself. His death was supposed to be an ending, a victory, the severing of a tyrant's head, and with it, the chains that bound the city. And for a time, it felt like freedom. Markets filled with voices unafraid to speak. Banners rose where once there were only shadows. The sky seemed bluer. The future possible. But Athos is not a story where endings are clean. Power doesn't vanish when a crown falls. It leaves a hollow. And hollows demand to be filled. In the heart of tears stands a guild hall. Stone, sweat, and laughter held together by stubborn will. It is a place of training, learning, arguments and spilled wine, and late-night plans that sound better in the telling than there'll ever be in the doing. It is a place where people who've lost everything dare to build something together. Among them walk three figures. Not heroes, not yet, but destined. One born of void and renewal, where death feeds life when life blooms in strange and unsettling ways. One carrying two voices within her. Light and darkness, each promising power and each demanding a price. One who once knew the weight of chains, but now fights so that others might never feel them. Others gather around them. Warriors who fought for tyrants and now seek redemption. Scholars who catalog the ruins of a world that destroyed itself. Healers who draw power from the sun and moon alike, even as those forces tear Athos apart. Fighters who learn survival in arenas and now choose their battles freely for the first time. Together, they laugh, they train, they argue over maps and ancient texts. They run afoul of the city guard as often as they aid them. They chase rumors into the wastes, into ruins that should have remained buried. into caverns where the past still breathes. And sometimes... Sometimes... they succeed. But Athos watches. The Sorcerer Kings were monsters. Cruel. Absolute. And yet they were... load-bearing monsters. They held together a world that wants desperately to collapse. Water. Food. Magic. All balance on systems so brutal they survived only because nothing kind or could. When one falls, the question is not whether the world improves, but whether it survives long enough to try. You are... Give the map a refresh in the vein hope that you'll actually see the guild hall. If not, use your imagination. Yay, I can see it! Woohoo! It is midday. The guild hall is alive with activity. Almost everyone shows up for lunch. Except after a really... nasty bender and there's good tunes good food plenty to drink and loud goings-on I feel like you two just walked in from opposite sides and Viz just walked in from the front What do you do? So... We're in the guild hall. You are... There's food. There's people sitting. Some are having loud discussions. None louder than Hygen and his daughter. Some are keeping more to themselves. I'm gonna go twiddle on the piano. Okay. Zek is currently crooning something, but he'll happily do a duet. I'm sure you've picked up a few things. I don't know if you have, I guess it's just all charisma. What luck, you have a charisma. Oh, you don't. When you linked your character, it obliterated your charisma check. Interesting. But you still have charisma, right? See, I can't see that character. Interesting. Alright, just roll a d20 then. I know what your charisma is. Six. The first official roll. And it's an eight. Fourteen. Perfectly competent. Your music livens the hall. It lifts spirits. It doesn't necessarily have any magical effect. Yeah, I wouldn't expect it to. The, uh... The way the food and drink works is everything is served at the bar. And, uh... You can pretty much take it. It's more like a buffet, unless you're asking for a drink or something. Right now, it's being made by Rex. Who is, uh... A Sobekian, which means he's got a humanoid body and a giant crocodile head. But impeccable fashion. Gives you a nod. Six, do you want to take in the room, get some food, talk to anybody? I can't hear you. I see. I see. Yeah. Yeah, you're on mute. I see a mute. That would probably help if I had that on. Okay. I was like, where is the board? Is there a mission of board? Like, is this the room it would be in? All business. It's pretty close to here, actually. If you go... Well... Since I did say that you just came from this north, you probably passed right by it and probably already took a look there. You do have an intention today of asking to do a qualifying mission. And what luck. There is one. It's a little unusual as missions go. It is B-Class, which means you need special dispensation, but that's the idea. And... It's a mission for the Templars that has special dispensation to operate within city limits, albeit only within the undercroft of the city. The water and sewer system with its ancient nooks and crannies It is a mission to acquire a fugitive of the highest... the highest importance, but, you know, modest danger himself. The dangers of the Undercraft are far greater. It's well known in Tyr that the city was built on a foundation 3,000 years ago that channels the water from the river to create a distribution system and drainage system. But it also has so many hiding places and lost chambers, creatures that live down there and never see the light of day. It's probably not good that those creatures have access to your water, but you know, what are you going to do? You were hoping to catch one of the S or A classes. You did walk right past Saffron, who's just quietly drinking some chai. And I don't know if they have papers, because paper seems like it would be expensive. Maybe vellum? Yeah, so I was wondering. Yeah. Stone tablets? Clay tablets? I linger near Saffron awkwardly. She's got a silver teapot and it is delicious. It looks delicious. There's enough space between her and Laszlo who is just kind of like sad anime Bishonin. In fact, when you sit, he goes, hmm. And he just gets up and wanders, leaving his food. You take a sniff. It smells of cream and tea leaves and a lot of things. Like so many spices. It's so complicated. Your pyrine senses are keen against the subtlest of flavors. So it's easy to get lost in something this complex. Oh, many... Leia... It's a bit munchy for me. Leia was apparently sharing the tea with her, too, even though they weren't saying a word to each other. They're also seated as far as possible from the epicenter of noise. You can't help but notice the... extremely large man who's pounding the table to emphasize his tall tales. But also at the far end of the long table set you're sitting at is Vale and his little fan club as he's talking about how he's going to take on this quest. He doesn't even have to go any. He'll be back by dinner. He'll have this fugitive no problem. The aracachras eating out of his hands and the other two look bored. Miz is taking in the room. Nod. He gives a chuckle at whatever nonsense Huygen was talking about. Let's get some food. and fetches a big pile of food. Probably about as big as her half of her body. As he's just grabbing his... Need some help carrying that? Oh no, no, I got it. I got it. Yeah. He takes a look at the table that's immediately like you could just lean over and put the stuff down then glances at Vale and then walks all the way over here instead. I was hoping to talk to you about getting on that, getting on the list to be assessed for moved up to B class. I noticed there were some missions that could qualify for us to be assessed. At least a few of us. Well. I believe there's one, but it is quite challenging. However, I have been in conversation with Lumi about it. We may want to discuss the matter with her directly. I can't recall a quest involving in-city operations, let alone one being used for ascension, but... It does seem to have a certain synergy. You were looking at that too, huh? The problem isn't the sewers. The problem is the Templars. They're not all bad. I'm not particularly fond of Hectus. I think it might be uniquely... to help find the fugitive. Imagine there's like a... She's doing the... Pip does the equivalent of going to the salad bar and grabbing the kale and the ice. Just whatever like... There was like a ham and she's like pulling the cloves out. So what are we talking about over here? Whether or not you're sick of bunk beds. Bunk beds? Crowded dorm laboratories. There's missions for ascension. We could go get a fugitive down ostensibly in the sewers and stuff. So there's got to be various creatures down there to see. And... I'm sure there's all kinds of old stones for me to talk to as well. I love talking to old stone. Rocks sure do have a personality, don't they? There's quite a bit of that down there. So much personality, especially in this city. After wrestling with herself on the social etiquette of eavesdropping... whatnot. Are you saying we need to go talk to Rumi? I'm not going to talk to Rumi. I'm talking about the quest, right? Really, really, really interested in the voices in the wind, the whispers that speak of the sleeper beneath the stones. There's like these haunted stones that talk, so you really are like talking to rocks i think she already gave that one to thora i started talking to the zahara about it and they took it off the board but i was actually really interested in that but honestly i think i like this one more i mean you guys need a sponsor right darling it would have to be a class or higher i know but also you need help I don't think either of you have done a whole lot of work on the B-class stuff. No. You have. Yeah, I know. I mean, relatively speaking, I'm often asked to assist in a whole bunch of research on objects and things you guys bring back. She's referring to the fact that you're not strictly forbidden from doing B-class missions in C-class. You can come along and it's sort of an apprenticeship thing where they think it's not too dangerous so you can get some experience. All of the missions in Viz's backstory were B-class, but he's still in your grade. But I think you guys are just newer. He spent a long time in this grade and you guys are like fast trackers. Let me go upstairs and see if she's busy. This does have... some urgency to it. I'm excited. I gotta say, I can see why you're interested. But, here it looks at you, Pip. You know, there's not a lot of nature down there. Except, well, okay, I was gonna say mushrooms and fungus, but yeah, there's actually probably a lot of that down there. Exactly. Weird, lightless creatures. Mole men, they say. There's a whole race of mole men. Uh-oh. Cole, you cut out completely. If you can still hear us, we can't hear you. Because your mic was picking up a little something. She's getting a snack. That's all right. I need to go to the bathroom. It's a perfect time. It hurts so much if you fall asleep on the couch. school and work meetings. Yeah, I do. Did you decide against bread? Did you take cake instead? Yeah, that's fine. The bread's probably too much work. My interpretation of Six not getting any food is that she's in like day two of her digestive cycle. She just couldn't care less. She's just focused. She's very focused. She's like, I gotta... do something. This is the opportunity. I feel it. Evie is going into a spiel. This is one of her special interests. The archaeological history of Tyr. And, uh... I won't quote you the entire article, because if you want, it is on the Dark Sun wiki. Uh... But basically... How do I shorten this? Okay. So, the city was originally built organically during the Green Age. And believe it or not, this whole valley was full of trees. The iron mine was present even back then. And back then, a man might haul ten tons of iron ore a day instead of ten pounds. If you can believe it. But... The city was also sitting in a floodplain and constantly flooded, and there was wolves and things, and the local giants would occasionally attack. Kallak found this city and decided it would make a fine base of operations. This was over 3,000 years ago. He first put his stamp on things by magically rerouting the river to stop the flood's while still keeping the useful course of the river. The whole reason the city's downriver is because that's by far the easiest way to unload the iron from the mine. You load it into the river on barges and float it down to the city. But that means the city is now downriver. And also, you know, mine runoff, but secondary to flooding. He... worked with the dwarves who engineered the mine in the first place. Are Vicky here? I don't see Vicky. I think she's on audio. There's a guild of dwarven scions whose psionic focus is construction. They use their psionics to find the right blocks of stone and see if joints are level and such. And they conferred with him and they said, yeah, this is a terrible place for a city. You want a grand city? We'll give you a grand city. If you, you know, pay us a shitload of money. He spent decades building a foundation for Tyr. Up in the foothills, the ridges that extend from the mountains. About half a mile from the original town. They laid down a base layer on the bedrock... and then built on top of that at least two levels in a sublevel, but also the foundation itself cascades down the ridge. The highest and smallest tier would be for Galec himself, of course, and then a tier for nobles who would pay into the city, making huge down payments to secure... hierarchal and not lifelong, I guess more than a lifelong rights that would be inherited for generations to come for their families. The next tier would be for merchants who could afford to purchase their own property and the rights to do business in the city, mostly related to iron mining. And then the lowest and largest tier would be for the common folk, many of whom just picked up the wooden houses that they had built and just moved them to the new city when it was finally done. He built himself a stupendous tower and ruled as a king for a very, very long time. But this was... The Green Age turned to a Red Age, and he was warring with, well... Everybody. Usually the battles didn't come to tier, but sometimes they did. And so they needed to enhance the city's defenses. He built out a network of towers that still stand today. Some of them inside the city, some of them along the walls, and some of them completely outside the city. But all linked to his central tower. Not just magically, but by literal... tunnels. Well, people say there's tunnels. No one's found them. Some say that they're made of metal, iron, or maybe gemstone, but not something you could traverse. Some say it's all just pure magic. But legends say, and there are people old enough in the city to confirm this, but when he needed to, he could manifest his power from any one of those, even when he wasn't in the city. but certainly when he was. And it's for that reason that the Undercroft is off limits. You can't just casually go in there. And the Templars control access when people... when there's some sort of maintenance need, the Architects Guild is involved, and the Templars have to sign off, and it's a whole thing. A Templar might have had excess to sneak in there, but for what reason? I mean... There's gotta be some ancient power down there. How many vaults full of spellbooks and magic artifacts might Kallak have left behind? Armories for the Templars. Just... Who knows? And... Okay, we're not technically supposed to go looking for that stuff, but if we stumble across something, you know, maybe. Just maybe. Maybe just talk to us, and I can't ignore something that's talking to me, you know. It's getting rude. They say there are voices down there that make men go mad. Yeah, well, most of the people who say they've been down there are just lying. But If you go with me, you won't be. This is like a ghost story kind of place. It's been 2,000 years since the Undercroft was sealed. That's a lot of time for weird stuff to happen. 1,990 of those. Oh, that's a lot of time for nature to rebuild while no humans are trampling all over it. I imagine there's... ton of good species down there that have been able to develop in the darkness and the lack of... Ooh, yeah, it'd be fun. There's some bioluminescent creatures down there, too. A lot of us have been saying, you know, that we need to open this up. Like, whatever Kallak was doing to keep the city working, like, we can't just assume it's still working forever. Like, whatever is down there, they're going to need adventurers to clear it out so that eventually... People can actually make sure it's a fill of monsters and our water isn't going to disappear tomorrow. But, you know, try telling that to the Templars. How much do we know about what they need him for? He didn't finish his work? So the quest board is pretty basic. It's like... More or less what you see, probably even a little bit less detail than that. But yeah, they claim that this is an architect who was involved with the Ziggurat. Now, the Ziggurat is a new construction. Kallax had a wizard tower here for 3,000 years. The Ziggurat was built over the last, like, 50 to 60. And it's huge, it's dominant, and it currently doesn't do much. By whom? Who is who? So, Kalak commissioned it for purposes that are generally assumed to be his own self-aggrandizement. The guild built it. And it's a strange thing. A gaudy thing. There's plenty of, like, ziggurat-shaped architecture, including the building you're sitting in right now. But this one has seven tiers, and each of them is glazed a different color of the rainbow. It's... Theories abound. Saffron actually thinks that he's invoking the power of the chakra. That the stacking, the order, actually mirrors the way the human body's natural energy focus points work. But why should he need some grand building to focus his magical energies when he already has his ancient tower? You never know. He's dead. He never quite finished it, although it was almost complete. And this architect was involved. Is he indeed dead? That's the question. Well, if Kalak lives, he's certainly been incognito for the last ten years. Maybe he's just waiting to see who his enemies and who his friends are. Well, certainly not the king. No, probably not. The, uh... The word comes back down. In fact, she sent an S-Class adventurer just to give it to you. Lumi would like to speak with you in her office. Up to Lumi's office. You look spring to your feet. Saffron looks, you know, she... She approves of your enthusiasm, but also she has her worries. This one does seem more dangerous than usual. Let's see. You ascend the long staircase doubling back of the double height first to the second tier where your potential new dormitories are. But even further up to the third level above the great hall itself there's an outer balcony. The day is typical Hazy enough that you can look at the sun with only minor pain. Some people say the sun is red, but that's the atmosphere. Some days the haze clears and you see the blue sky. And when you do, it's time to get underground because the UV index goes up to like a thousand. But the sun is quite clearly still white on those days. It's hot, but not nearly hot enough to suggest rain. On the hottest days, Kallak used to work with his circle of conjurers and cast an epic spell, cooling the city to near freezing, releasing the atmospheric water, bathing the city in rain. Usually for 12 to 16 hours, Every such rain day would be a party in the streets. Water was free to all, except for containers. You are not allowed to contain it. But you can drink it, do whatever you want. It's bath day. The water would drain into the cisterns and into the aquifers of the farmland and keep the city alive for another week, month. Sometimes season before the next rain. And in modern times it takes an entire circle of wizards to partially reproduce what Kallak could do. Many worry that the Sorcerer King was chased off a little prematurely as water rations hit harder and harder. Yeah, this one works. To get into her office, you first walk through the... It's like a little miniature university. There's a couple of lecture halls with kind of high stone, almost gothic furnishings. There are tiered seats so... 12 or 15 people can listen in and learn and as you often have learning of magic and monsters ancient geography and ancient languages and in one of those classrooms there's a door that leads to the guild master's office come in she smiles and bows Be truthful and succinct. And lets you all pass. One solid wall of her office is just stained glass floor to ceiling. Different patterns and shades give it all sorts of interesting hues and light. She wanted this window to face the sun as much as possible. Pretty weird. I want the sun to shine on you. With the red sun, everything is very cool, like warm and dim and cozy. And you would say probably warm enough. I mean, the ambient temperature in the guild hall is on a day like this, probably in the low 80s. But with the window, it's even higher. So why exactly does she have her fireplace going? To bring it up to like the mid 90s. She makes it hot. She sits in her high chair. Literally, it has a higher than normal pitch because she's only about three feet tall. Okay. Just finishing some legal documents. She hops down from the chair. The room has like a little raised dais where her desk is. This is her personal collection. She's got... There's a whole library outside on this floor. This kind of a U-shaped balcony and a whole bunch of stone book slash scroll shelves. As many of them contain reading material as contain like knickknacks, Tchotchkes. The stuff that's interesting but not so valuable it needs to be locked in the vault. But she has a few personal things. She seeded that collection out there, but the guild has largely collected it. These are things she's collected, and some of it... Some of it really wants to speak to you, Ari. Like... That. A petrified bone. If that's... It's fang-shaped... but it's a good six feet long. And it, there's this, as soon as you look at it, you have this, your inherent power with the simplest of invocations, sorry, evocations, you can determine the age of something. This fang is 9,000 years old. Heterified bone. that it used to be. With a stronger working, maybe you could see what it used to be part of. But then there's something over here. What the hell is that? Some sort of floating, like, helix-shaped gem? It's somehow carved into a helix, and it's just floating there, rotating. And it's... It's confusing your senses. Let me read exactly how this spell works. Tempus... So, no age, time since birth, or time since the object was immediately transformed. Okay. This thing is a mere 700 and something years old. But it was somewhere before that doesn't register. It's like previous location 404 file reference not found. There's countless things in here. And each one is arrayed like Like the way they do high-end clothing shops where there's only like seven things in the whole store and they have a ton of shelf space. Are they in an order of age? Like as I'm standing for ages? There's some internal logic here, but it escapes you. Some of these things aren't all that old. Including what looks like a magic wand that's also just hovering in a little field of force. that you've heard of this. Its reputation precedes it. This was one of the wands of Kallak himself. Perhaps not his most powerful. Holy... You're eyeballing her stuff, she... It doesn't seem to take too much offense. Pip, what might interest you, depends on what you find interesting, is this... This grand wooden desk of her is all polished wood along with the chair. A luxury, but also a memory. Like, there's something to it. Like, you have, like, druidic affinity, so, like, you can look at... a leaf and be like, I know exactly what species of tree this is and whether it was diseased and, you know, whatever. And you just know as soon as you see it that wood is extinct. So, barring asking your chronomancer friend to do anything fancy, you have to assume that's a rather old piece of furniture in excellent condition. I mean, wood can last hundreds of years. Can it last thousands? You just feel that there was like a glade of trees here once that it's just gone. Nothing of this species survived. The idea of extinction is sad, because like, why should anything end? Why not just create more? Why not just grow and mutate? I really wanted to make this thing start sprouting mushrooms, but it's probably not a good idea. Come here. She motions you down to her level. It's not too bad, because she's still standing at the edge of the dais, so she's maybe about three and a half feet tall. Hmm. Grabs, like, your cheeks. Chicks your teeth. springs her ear. Not quite the right springiness. Biz nods. He noticed that. It's the little things now. You know, you've got the form down pat, but like the viscosity, the squishiness, you know, that stuff is harder. You two are very ambitious. Not many have sought so dangerous an ascension so early in their careers here. She gives Viz the side-eye, who seems a little embarrassed. That would be the wiser course. I don't think you would have invited us up to talk if you were going to say no. One doesn't stay too long in this line of work without getting a... A scent. A feel. For the interesting ones. This quest is highly unusual. The fact that they're coming to us. More so. This is something I... Would normally prefer to trust in my most senior associates. But they were adamant. They don't want someone like Saffron. Which has me assuming... All the worst, really. Tell me about it. I mean, specifically inexperienced adventurers. Well... There's something to be said for the notion that... Their party line remains. The undercraft is perfectly safe. The rules are there to protect it from us. But they know the truth. If they keep us at sufficiently low level going in there, we're less likely to pillage the other stuff and more likely to just search for him. You'll either die in the attempt or be smart enough to not get distracted. A reasonable assessment. I mean, or both. Why not get distracted? It's fun getting distracted. Sometimes it's the best. Like, your room is so full of distractions, but it was so fun exploring those before we got to talk, because I got to feel all the time I was waiting for you to speak. And I got so much information. You're just, like, staring and minor incantations. Master, I don't want to be impudent, but do you really think we're cut out for this mission? A wise question? Well, someone else ought to be. Tell me. Raise your hand if you stare down a sorcerer king and live to tell the tale. Saffron. Her. And both of you. Yeah. Biz looks a little sheepish. You know, I got the invite. Like I said, unusual. And you two are some of the most unusual new adventurers I've ever had in this guild. Should I just get going then? No, no, they're definitely going to need your skill set. And I think yours, Evie. When did you meet a sorcerer, King? Neither here nor there. There are strict rules of engagement in this mission. I was just looking at the legalese. She casually flicks a second order spell into existence and that scroll floats over. She adds... a third glyph and while the scroll is floating a huge holographic image of it appears so you can read it it's dense legalese as ever written in the old tongue which looks like cuneiform the vulgar written language has long since diverged over the 2000 plus years but the Templars are nothing if not traditionalists The penalties for the operation of guilds in any capacity and the practice of magic in the city can be quite severe. This is not a blanket pardon for anything you might do. Your objective is narrowly outlined. And these clauses here say a whole bunch of things you can't do. To wit, open any... treasure chests, secret doors, sarcophagi, vaults, etc. That aren't strictly necessary. Oh, okay. And you have to be prepared to prove it. Um... How would you like me to translate what the stones might be telling me if the stones tell me he's in certain rooms? Well, magic is magic. Your... Formal incantations are well known. And... It's a mix, you see. The Templars would very much believe the Pyrene are capable of all sorts of supernatural feats. But do you want to draw attention to yourself? I would say just... Just tell them it was magic. Okay. In case you can read this ancient text, which actually I think quite possibly can. I think we made a note of that ancient language. She still remembers because why wouldn't she? In fact, she had to learn the other ones. E's. And yeah, you can see it's just like it's breaking down. It's referring to other existing laws like the qualified immunity that you have. You know, if you have reason to believe there's like a fugitive and you're outside of the city and you think it's him and you tell him to stop and he doesn't stop and you shoot him and it turns out to just be some rando, that's where qualified immunity kicks in. And they say that since this is an apprehension that can extend to persons, but that will not extend to Magic, magical creatures, artifacts, etc. So what you're saying is we don't get to take anything from there. It's nothing. We can't loot anything. Just so. And I'm signifying by my signature here that you aren't going to. Putting my name and reputation on the line. I'm going to be personally sponsoring this mission. Oh. Is that unusual? It's... Saffron opines. It happened once or twice. This... Our older associates have a lot of experience, but sometimes you gotta dig deep in the well. Back to the Before the guilds were a formal thing. Then, uh, does this... Does this famous architect have any, uh... magical skill of his own? I assume as a senior architect he's got some psionic ability. Pretty much everybody. I mean, it's a guild that's also kind of like a family tree. There's a lot of hereditary powers. Count on... ability to manipulate earth possibly up to including making it very hard to find him and if he is feeling particularly defensive yeah yeah definitely some telekinesis i know they can affect gravity itself useful for lifting those huge sandstone blocks okay And these are just general abilities. You know, it probably varies. They're pretty tight-lipped about what exactly they can do. I have heard tales. But you just have to expect the unexpected. I mean, that's what I feel like I've been getting used to since I woke up. So nothing new for me. Given his crimes, what does he face if we return him alive to the Paladins? Well, he did murder a few people. They weren't nobles. I think they're more concerned about his theft of secure material being physical. That and just all of the secrets that he knows. I mean, I did notice that there was a secondary mission of retrieving. Yes. Now does that count as stealing or looting? Retrieve meaning you'll have to hand it over to the paladins. And I'm sure they know exactly what's inside. So at minimum... He won't be going anywhere and seeing any sunlight for a while. I imagine it would be complicated for them to execute someone in the guild. The guild's older than the Templars themselves. Do you have anything in your, uh, trough of amazing tools here that might help us restrain him and bring him back after we subdued him? Because I think that might be part of the struggle, given his several abilities. You know, just might. She weaves a second order spell and starts levitating on like a little disc of magical runes. This room is unnecessarily tall and there's many levels, most of which you can't even easily see. Is any of you a scion? Nope. I don't know where. Good, because this will sort of suppress any psionics you might have. It looks like a a thin, barely more than a wire, like a ribbon of bronze with little flares that are crown-like, but they're inset with these gems. They called it a Cyanatrix. It can nullify psionic ability, coming or going. I mean, you could wear this and none of them could read your mind. Or you can put it on one, and he won't be able to do much of anything. So we could wear it defensively if we are worried about him impacting us. You have to make sure he doesn't get it off, because, you know, he could just take it off. I mean, intuitively, we're going to have to be tying hands or something. Well, I can handle that part. I prefer not to have to break fingers, but I could probably break fingers. Swords are strong, but... enough rope anything's possible. Yeah, I'm not even sure I would trust metal manacles fancy as those are. You might be able to like control metal with this dwarf magic. Psyonix. Yes, that too. The other thing they were very clear about is the need for discretion. Despite the fact that his crimes are public, They don't want a whole lot of information getting out. Ostensibly, it's because they're probably embarrassed to have so many state secrets compromised, but I think there's more to it than that. Are we allowed to go and inspect the initial crime scene for investigating his... I think that would be perfectly fair, and falls well within our purview, according to Chapter 14, Section 6 of the Guild Compact. There is a... There is a process. And... Each of the quests is emblazoned magically on a crest. The crests are reusable. There's actually a messenger who comes in and brings them to each guild hall. And... She... conjures some magic when you see the Phoenix Dawn logo appear. And she invites the four of you to make your mark. You feel your own emblems. They're warm with magical power as they basically give you the power of arcane mark. It's If you touch the crest, it will emblazon your personalized mark on it. This constitutes a legal document. It will be turned back into the... the central guild bureaucracy, whatever they're called. The guild guild. Also... they did say they were in a hurry. So I hope... you're ready to move quickly. I'm ready to go right now. I haven't ready to go since I got up this morning. Don't exactly need a, you know, a caravan full of food. Don't assume you'll be back too early, though. Do take some precautions. Do we need to talk to to get into his house? Do we get to go to his house now? We've never operated within the city before. Once... this gets out, you'll be legally able, but I can write you a quick note just in case you get any guff. Also, take this to Myrtle if you need any provisions. Things can get a little dicey down there. Have fun. Be safe. And do try not to get in trouble. Thanks for trusting us, Lumi. I mean, go to the master, because you prefer titles here. Sorry. We're sending us off to our doom. Well, let's not keep Myrtle waiting. Yeah, you probably need... I mean, Pip is probably just in her element down there. But... The guild assessment was that this could take one to two days. It's always good to make sure you have like water and rations and stuff. You might get awfully hungry in the next couple of days. Yeah, I start getting into my... It's not uncommon when going on longer trips to take like an animal and just have it walk with you and carry your stuff and then eat it later. I mean, it's portable food. They do have some. And, uh... Let's see. Dealing with the atmosphere down there can be rough. There's, um... The oxygen is probably a little limited. There can be some weird gases and stuff. I think Pip... Do you have... Yeah, okay. You can make the atmosphere more noxious with spores. If it's water-based, you can definitely do something about it. There may be some alchemical concoctions. You, uh... Is there anyone in the guild who's like an artificer that we could get some masks or something from? I'm thinking... Probably more on the alchemy side. Let's see. Where would be a good place to store this? I guess I'll just put it on your character sheets. So, we'll say that something kind of like the Plague Doctor mask, like a alchemically treated mask that has filtering capabilities, but a limited lifespan. Mask of filtering. Filters out ordinary airborne toxins. And yes, even spores. Lasts up to three days. go visit a Azeem. Yeah, I'm storing a circlet of psionic suppression on my character sheet. Let's see. Water. Now, he does have a pitcher of purification, which could be really useful in a sewer. Yeah, that could be really useful in the sewer. This is what we both need to establish is our items, our magic item stuff. This is very dark sun. We're going to be counting stuff. So I would recommend, we'll start with you because you're probably the hardest case, food. Something about the size of a pig. How about a pig? One hog with leash. We're going to use it to like defuse bombs or something. Imagine a hog can carry like a little bit of cargo. We can also sniff. Truffles. It's probably truffles down there. All sorts of stuff. I mean, bread. Bread's always good. Dry rations. Four days. Water weighs about eight pounds. But you're actually pretty strong. So I think you could carry, let's see. Man, these numbers, like D&D just glosses over it. Carrying four gallons of water is 80% of the way to just carrying one of those five-gallon water cooler jugs all the time. That's so fucking heavy. It is. But a hog isn't exactly going to be able to... Let's see. She can also remove water. In a way, we can get water while we're out there. You can do half a gallon. You're not going to be in a sunny environment. So you can probably get by with two gallons of water. Four... Four quarts on person. Four on the hog. Okay. Now the hog's going to need to drink water too and eat, but will also give you a fresh burst of food one time only. And Pip can drain water so she can instantly cure a hog into like bacon jerky. Insta sausage while recovering the water in it. Um... supplies. I mean, so one thing Viz is worried about is navigation. He's going to take so he's not going to take a hog. He is going to take a bunch of chalk. That's a good idea to mark where we are in the sewer. Yeah. OK, so is there do we have a library? Yes. Okay. I am going to go, because I'm an arcanist, I'm going to go study to try and create a scroll of light the path. That's as I rank three. I feel like it was probably rank three. Well, there are some things. So do you have Lux yourself? You have Tempest and Stella, although you do have an open slot. Technically, all of these are implemented. They are implemented by AI, so they might be kind of wonky. But we'll see. Lux? Oh, no, wait. Oh, no, no, you're perfect for this. I forgot. You have Guiding Star. Guiding Star can be used to create a Seeking Star. and you tell it what you're seeking, and it will just slowly float toward that. If you get a DC-17, it can find something very specific, like a person you know by name. At 19, you can find some in a larger area. There's both the criteria and the range scale up. So if you get a DC-17, 37, you could find anything at all basically anywhere in the world. And it just becomes this light that just leads you to places. So really, it's up to you and your casting skill. Now, you may not have a implement, although... I guess that depends on your background. I think I have to create a casting implement would be a pretty good thing to acquire in your background. Yes, that's kind of what I was thinking too. That's one of the reasons I wanted to talk about it before I kind of shot the gun on. You'll probably be able to, we'll probably be able to retroactively figure that out before you like need to cast very important spells in earnest. Now Pip... You're not likely to need a lot of water down here. Even if you're in the driest part of the Undercraft, it's probably moist. And you can drain all of the water out of an area as like a swift action. So I'm going to assume you have less water. Little quartz. Person. Dry rations. Mostly... Mushrooms, dried bugs, some dried fruit, because it's interesting. I mean, druids are pretty good at survival in weird places. Vision. So... He has low-light vision. This is useful. Draconic Ancestry... You don't actually have any direct... She's so shit, though. You could take a feat. Oh, yeah. Well, Draconic doesn't... Probably not by default, but yeah, she is of the darkness. Do you want to take a feat? Or low-light visions? Probably ought to. I mean... Ancestry... Yeah, an Ancestry feat. You are of the darkness. I would say that at 5th level, if you have low light vision, you could upgrade it to full dark vision. If you wanted to spend your 5th level feat on that. Um, yeah. I probably should have ability to see. Dark vision goes beyond low light vision, obviously. It's only available to magical creatures, not, you know, 90% of all races 5th edition. The Guiding Light itself can cast reasonable light. Light spells are generally, if you can cast them, are more efficient because, like, burning things is hard, but you can get some oil-based torches. How long does a medieval oil Space torch 15 to 90 minutes. Yeah And an oil lamp 10 to 50 hours Yeah, much better 32 ounce lamp. Okay, so he's gonna take oil lamp With 96 ounces of oil I believe, Pip, if you encounter any organic material, you can transmute it into oil by rotting it really fast. So maybe he could just do... He still insists, though. I mean, 96 ounces is not that much oil. I mean, I feel like I could just take bones and eat bones instead of taking a whole freaking pig. Well, I mean, the others could eat the pig and you could eat its bones because they're not particularly nutritious to anyone else. Oh, shit. got those huge bone-crushing teeth like a dog. I mean, you can crush rocks. What's a bone? And I think you probably need to because you have mineral... You've got really dense bones and horns that probably need an infusion of heavy minerals. Exactly. So she's got to eat bone and she's eating some rock when she can't have bone. She's like... None of you use weapons except for Viz. He's got his knives. How about two extra knives just in case? Spellcasters. Clothes? Probably just make sure your clothes are real clean now and just white knuckle it. waste disposal you have the aforementioned potion pitcher of purification it's not pleasant but yes you can pee in it and then drink the water and it'll be perfectly pure water it's we just don't talk about that the let's see You could even create a natural diffuser for the alchemical neutralization of the noxious air. It's like somebody's running a mini humidifier in the group. I think there should be a skill check of some kind. Maybe charisma. It depends who you're charming. This could be a fun minigame. So like... Where's my campaign notes file? Okay. Minigame. Get extra resources. So if you want alchemy, you gotta talk to Azim. He is... Hmm, how do you impress him? Maybe Charisma... Okay, who else is this? So if you want, like, jewelcrafting, you want leatherworking... Enchanting. I mean, Myrtle is sort of the buck stops here. But I should probably figure out who is like the guild's various higher level craftsmen who can teach you stuff. Jewelcrafting, should it be the giant or is he more of a smith? Azir, okay. They should be at least A class. Let's see... Akshay. Who would be good at leatherworking? Probably Nua, but he's B class. Hygen? It's not like he's gonna smith any metal for you. I mean, maybe. Who else would be the smith? Enchanting? There's quite a lot of people who could do that. Aram is more of a chronomancer. Where is the guild list? Who does leather? The crocodile. Bullet. Absolutely. Enchanting. Well, that's gonna go to Lumi, I think. What are the other crafts? Are there any? Inscription, jewel crafting, other work. Okay. The thing I'm thinking of was traditionally a jewel crafting item? Let me see. Bottle of, yes. Jewel crafting. Bottle. Yes, bottle of sweet air. It is an expensive item. So the idea here is that once per mission you could like try to sweet talk somebody into renting you a really useful item. Akshay is... He responds best to charisma. Just give him the doe eyes. Like please, pretty please, we're so low level and you wouldn't want us to die. Who's the best at charisma? I pointlessly asked. Give me your first official role. You have a charisma button. It might even work. Let's see. Where's my chat screen go? Did it disappear? I've seen that happen and I told it to fix that and it said it fixed it. But If you press it, it may force it to appear when you press the button. I refreshed and it did. Okay, that works too. Oh, no, it does it when I try and select my token. That's interesting. Let me put that in a bug record. Okay, let's try. If you see any bugs, make a note of them. All right, I'll just roll a d20 and save a link for my character since it doesn't want to use the chat and then my character. Oh, okay. Chat disappears. No, because apparently it worked when I tried it earlier. Yeah, I see. It may have been me rolling. Do you see at least the Charisma button? I did when I clicked on it. Yeah, when I selected it. But I can't select it now, so I'm just going to do D20. OK. Yeah, if you roll from chat, that's just you rolling as you. You can either click the die roll button or you can just type 1D20. No special syntax. I can't see what the result is. Nine? That's pretty low on 1D100. So I just type? Yeah, you can just type 1D20 and press enter. And hopefully we'll go. 18. Ooh, not bad. I believe you are at plus eight. Yes. Yes. That's a 26. Well, I mean, I wouldn't want to. She really let you on that quest. Yeah, I'm so excited. Is anyone going with you? I mean, you can help. Oh, well. Did you want to come? You can come too. He will... he's inclined to and then it's explained to him that uh it's explicitly only for b class and lower members which seems very odd to him that's usually especially since it's well-paid yeah normally the only reason to not do that would be if you're just you wouldn't explicitly say it you just wouldn't pay enough to get their attention right well he's doubly concerned So he can definitely make a... In fact, he probably already has a bottle of sweet air. You score... a... bottle of sweet air. Temp for episode one. From Akshay. The bottle can do the following. When you unstopper it, it produces an emanation of 10 that removes all noisome odors and harmful gas effects from the air. Creates a bubble of breathable air despite conditions, including underwater and in the vacuum of space. However, in those conditions, it's only an emanation too. And otherwise it just works all the time, which is pretty darn useful. But he's also concerned... Yeah, let me check this. Dual crafting... Wait, equipment dual crafting or feats? Okay, that's just the feat that gives you dual crafting. Strength. Well, that's probably not your... Charisma? Oh, I only did strength in dex. Because I'm lazy. Fuck. Well, dex it is. He's also going to give you a deft peridot. This can be slotted into basically any amulet ring or other jewel. He has a wealth, a personal wealth of jewels and gems that he's purloined from various places. It's like, oh, neither of you have. Okay. I've gotta do something about that. It's a deft Paradeau, right? Deft... Garnet? Wait, where'd it go? Yes, Paradeau, okay. Yeah, he can spare. He's ranked three. He can spare a couple of rank one gems. You both probably like decks. Sorry, if it is, I only had two. Yeah, sure, I bet. It has nothing to do with gender. He'll give him a bold garnet. It's like, I'm not favoring women at all. I just, it's like, you're just being sexist. I get it. I get it. You're just a big sexist chauvinist. You assume they're weak. I understand. Let's see. Values only. All right. He's going to give him a bold garnet because he's the only one who uses melee attacks. So I put those on your character sheets. get plus two to initiative and plus two squares to movement speed. Draw our store weapon as a free action. Once per round, dodge without spending a reaction. Once per short rest, take an additional move action as a free action. Cool stuff. It takes you most of the afternoon to get geared up and Evie wants to do a little study sesh in the library with what little knowledge you guys have. And I don't have her character sheet, so I'm going to put this on is actually evie has this maps of the undercraft questionably accurate i'm gonna check them right because i can check whether they've been modified with the time magic that's true they may be inaccurate because the undercroft was modified I can't at least check on this side of it. We also talked about you guys having a job, like a side job here, and she worked with the cartographer and the archivist. Because they're like, oh, that's fake. That's real. That's fake. Yeah, I think you can make sure that none of the bad maps get into the collection. Even though they looked really nice, you're like, no, that was made way too recently. That's just a forgery. They can already tell the difference between dwarven architecture plans and at least bad forgeries, but it's just a dead giveaway when it's too recent for anyone to have actually seen that. Yeah, that's interesting. Would no age let you know that this was copied from something else? I don't know. In fact... If there was any class that had a literal word magic to do magic on written documents, it would be the Arcanist. Mm-hmm. So yeah, I will say Maps of the Undercroft, fairly accurate. Huzzah. Basically, it would basically give you a navigation skill at a disadvantage, so now it's not at a disadvantage. I think that's fair. That is fair. That sounds fair to me. And the... Yeah, this could... Well, okay. You mentioned that the first place you wanted to go was to take a look at the scene of the crime. See if you could glean anything from that. And that does fall within your purview. 18... happy scene of a crime. It's politically sensitive because the crime itself happened at the Architects Guildhall, which is a hard place to get into. But the Templars pursuing justice did get access. They secured the crime scene and While the blood is hardly fresh, I think it's still... still under their control. There's some showing of notes and querying. The Templars send a messenger to Guild HQ to make sure that you guys are now officially attached to this case. It's sundown by the time you finally get access. And... I have just the right... Oh, of course. Of course Spotify wouldn't have that. It's not the type of music the Jedi would do. I mean, Spotify. Good thing I have my old, old, old collection. Media player. Shit, that's fine. know if this is horribly loud because it's not spotify no it's okay the architects guild built tier they built calyx tower they built the walls that defended the city for thousands of years they built the undercroft with its aqueducts and sewers they built your guild hall basically every important stone construction in the city. So you can bet your dwarven ass their guild hall was designed to impress. Right away, the entryway is designed to humble you. A vast, looming, trapezoidal hall. The walls lean in but standing in alcoves are 80-foot-tall statues of great dwarves past, their names etched in all dwarven ruins. None of them are terribly familiar, except any, apparently, who can read them. Kulakchar? Kulakchar. Ah, the priest reckoning. year 72. Well, at least they used our calendar. Side note, the Athasian calendar is bananas. It is deliberately obtuse. Thankfully, you have... A little low. Yeah, it's getting there. Thankfully, you have a chronomancer who can confirm for you that the older statues you see really do date back to 3,000 years, like literally before the Red Age ended. Before the life was drained from this valley, from most of this world. This building and its history straddle the ancient and the modern. Dour-looking dwarves gloomily watch as the Templar Not the elder who signed this contract, but someone important. We'll say... How about a name? Krom. Why not? Paladin Krom. A decorated paladin. Anyone who spent time in the city knows that Paladins are basically the highest ranking members of the Templars that you will really encounter outside of the Templar Halls. They're the highest rank that still practices. In ancient times, you know, ten years ago, they were judge, jury, and executioner all in one, wielding the power of Kalak, exercise his law. Now their power is a little more constrained. There are trials now. Evidence presented. Arguments can be made. And not all the Templars are particularly happy about that. You're also... You're also... escorted by Brother Boros, an elder... Elder as humans go, not elder as dwarves go. Like, middle-aged dwarf. Most of them, they have a very monastic style to them. They have this very humble dress. No golden armor festooned with jewels for these dwarves. And they... ask for... There's a strict path that you have to take to avoid accessing areas they don't want you to access. They're grumpy and stern, but that might just be because they're dwarves. And at last you arrive in a chamber. It looks like... the dwarven equivalent of a cad. There's a... A great walkway with catwalks. And beneath this... This, uh... System of walkways... Is a complete and extremely detailed map of the city. Carved in stone. It looks like just solid stone, but it's... It's huge. This room is like... about the size of an Olympic swimming pool. And there is a scaffold in place near the far end of where you entered. There's a couple of knights of the Templar order here standing guard. The scaffolding allows someone to descend from this this system of walkways. Only where the scaffold exists can you descend. Because only things under construction would ever need to be touched or modified in any way. And what was under construction or rather it was constructed but here it's still being worked out. is this model's copy of Kalak's final ziggurat. He's putting the finishing touches on it along with some of his assistant stonemasons. They take their sweet time with these things. And they've told you the basic facts of the case. that he began to be more and more obsessed. He was looking into ancient documents in the vault, things he wasn't supposed to know. He was cross-referencing the designs, and they told him to let it go, that the ziggurat was never going to be completed, and it didn't matter. And he let it go for ten years. And then for some reason, he got obsessed with it again. And he started... He wasn't even directing this carving thing. He'd long ago given instructions for the Masons on how to finish it. But he started asking them lots of questions. Weird questions about details. The Ziggurat was actually damaged during Kalak's fall. Only the guild knows the exact blueprints. The parts that weren't finished, the parts that were destroyed, they know... And here they were reproducing that in miniature. And he was examining things when one night he came in and instead of asking questions and meddling in their affairs of the stonemasons... He was examining his model one night? Yeah, he came in here and there were two stonemasons in here working perfect some of the details on the exterior of the ziggurat. It's not known if he asked them anything. No one else was here. But he murdered them. Presumably using his psionic power. The Templars examined the bodies and they still have them. You do have the right to check those out too. But they said that the The C3 vertebrae were sheared perfectly so that the spinal cord would be instantly cut without even so much as damaging the flesh of the neck. They would just have collapsed in a heap and died quickly of oxygen starvation as their hearts failed to beat. Not as quickly, because they're dwarves. He then violated the construction, as you can see. There's a clean... He must have, like, psionically just separated the bonds of the stone, because the ziggurat has just been opened. Like the jaws of life. revealing its cross-section. Part of why this takes so long is they're basically crafting it in 3D, even though you wouldn't even be able to see the inside. And every detail has to be perfect. So it reveals a cross-section of the ziggurat all the way down to the undercroft. You can imagine doing that to a solid rock. In fact, similarly, the city caused some serious secondary damage. And the masons of the guild are probably quite upset about that. He then used that information, presumably, and stormed off, gaining entry into the Undercroft through previously unknown means. He was trailed, and it was found that he knew of some secret entrance, which the Templars have, of course, locked off, and the wants to seal, but they've kept it open since it may be the fastest way to tail him. That's exactly what we're going to need to do. I'm going to need to see documents of what he was obsessed with. That can be arranged. Can I have a moment in here? The knights will remain. if you work magic. I just need quiet. The paladin looks skeptical and he consults magic that is non-destructive in nature and limited in scope. Maybe used strictly purposes of ascertaining the facts of this case. That is my intent. I intend to watch the actions of that night with my chronomancy. The dwarf tries to be stoic, but the mention of chronomancy seems to have given a little tick. If it disturbed the Templar, he didn't let it. But maybe he's a little disturbed because he gives you a little bit of room to work. Do you want to peer into the past? Yes. Well, the murder happened yesterday, so it won't be too hard. Roll your charisma-based... Yeah, you're a charisma caster, so roll charisma. Even though intelligence is probably involved, too. You're a sorcerer. You just have a knack for it. advantage because I asked for quiet. I was really trying to get better concentration in here. Yeah, I feel like that's it's like range attackers can take an aim action if they have extra time that gives them advantage. I feel like you can take like a concentrate action as a standard action and then roll forward with the advantage. There we go. That puts me at a 20. Roll a 20. That'll show you the last week. No? I saw it. I had us. Nope. Ravi, you have something to write on. Absolutely. Get ready. I'm going to be translating what is said. so you can write it down. You see the people walking backwards. You see a whole bunch of like paladins and scribes who are the non-combatant Templars doing like the investigative work. And then there it is, bodies. They were meticulous. They spent a couple hours going over the scene. And... There's a lot to transcribe. I think... I guess the spell isn't written all that clearly. Do you get to spend a whole day watching a day? Or do you have to concentrate and only watch a few chosen rounds? Eh, I guess we can get into that at some point. But you're looking for... something very specific. You rewind... Like standing over a movie where you can rewind and fast forward. It's like, I need that moment in the movie right now. You've got like the scrubber. You go back before the investigators where the bodies are just sitting there. And then suddenly there he is. Pause. You see him. He looks determined. stern and bothered. You know, dwarfish. He is an elder of the Order. So he's allowed a few minor indulgences. Slightly fancier robe. But he looks like he was ready to adventure. He's got like a belt with some packs of things. He's wearing heavy boots and he's got some He doesn't carry a weapon per se, but he does have a pretty strong looking hammer that you're guessing probably serves if need be. It is in fact a metal hammer, fancy dwarf. And you rewind back to the incident. When he first comes into the room, and the bodies are already dead. He seems alarmed. He runs over to check them. They're already cold. He looks around for, and then he mentally scans. He's shocked. Shakes his head. steals his will, conjures his power, breaks the carving. He... It's so far down that he can barely see. He reaches down to feel the shape of the carvings down there. get the sense that that is sufficient for him to like memorize it he closes the eyes of one of the masons he's speaking dwarvish so you're basically like transliterating you're you're you're just sort of listening to what he said and just reproducing it as best as possible as she takes notes and You can sweep it back several more days, but you just see a succession of different shifts of stonemasons working on tiny details of this thing. But not their actual death? Well, okay, yes. Before you do that, I forgot. You're probably interested in how they died. It's a little bit anticlimactic. One of them is making small talk. The other seems grumpy about that and responds mostly with, and he comments on the nature of this design. You can tell he's younger, maybe a little more brash, a little less careful with his tongue. But the gist of it, as you'll suppose later get from the dwarven translation is that the frustration or rather weren't weren't do you suppose the the elders they're referring to the actual architects themselves these are just journeymen essentially what must they have thought when Kallak insisted on doing the stonework himself on ignoring their their suggestions on with tradition. But the mere discussion of that seems to make the other one uncomfortable, and he deflects. And they're in the middle of this small talk when the young one just cuts off mid-sentence. And the older one, perhaps happy for a moment's respite, doesn't respond immediately, but then looks... He looks curious. And then he notices something. You sort of have to, like, move your camera. A man? It looks like a man. If a man were made out of, like... basalt... He has an impassionate... cool expression. Slender... slenderly built, but... larger than life. He is clothed in some sort of robes, but they too appear made of stone. The dwarf issues him a challenge and starts to shout for help. You say larger than life, like by comparison, how big are we talking about? Humans aren't usually like seven feet tall. Because it was just average human size. Big for a human, not big for a Goliath. He's a giant. Possibly. He's built like a human. I mean, he doesn't have pointy ears, but you'd almost say he's more elf-y than human. Very angular. But again, it looks like his body's made of stone, except for the fact that it moves and has curves and things. But not like 100% as curvy as a human. Like, you know, a compromise between... realities of stone carving and the form of the things. But he didn't say anything. He just gave more of a gesture. And with that gesture, the mason fell. And then he examined the miniature ziggurat. The masons were working with plans. You know that those were collected by the architects before the investigators even got here. Just tiny slices of the whole. The whole architecture is probably a secret to somebody on their level. But detailed schematics. One of them was working on one little gargoyle. But it's like an unnecessary amount of detail. like a 3D model, just every pixel, every point on it has precise three-dimensional coordinates. Lots of angles and measures. He examined their notes. And he worked a spell, which you make a mental note to learn that one, as he forms like a fifth order spell the words and diagrams lift from the page they're copies not taken and merge into like this this whirl of symbols and stuff in his hand he just like absorbed the knowledge and has as he passes his hand through he makes this plane of light and he phases it through the ziggurat Then he wafts it in the air and it produces an exact three-dimensional scan. That too he absorbs. Then he seems to notice something. All right. So absorbed spell? I mean, absorbed blueprints. He uses that same knowledge-absorbing magic. And it just schlorps into whatever... abstract knowledge container that he seems to have. Not a spell book, just like a orb of thousands of symbols and glyphs hovering in space. And when he notices something coming, he whips up a fifth order spell and teleports. does her best-dwarven translation. Okay. But... Your transliteration was done in the earshot of Brother Boros, who grunted at the effrontery of this young dwarf saying all these things that are improper. But nothing worse than that. And you didn't end up saying, I imagine... And then he didn't kill them because that would have not been necessary for the Trans Federation. No. So... No, I'm going to have to... That's going to be something I keep in confidence because I don't want anything in this to be getting out. Oh my god. Oh my god. There's a... There's no blood spatter or anything. What is this thing? The thing we're supposed to be retrieving? So he has a... They called it something. Yeah, he has schematics and blueprints probably in some sort of container, but the specific wording is any and all scrolls, written documents, etchings, carvings, da-da-da, long legalese that contain blueprints. Okay, so did the physical things get destroyed when he was... them into his little orb, or did they turn into blank pages that this information needs to be put back into? So the mysterious mage made a copy of the paper-based blueprints that the Masons were using, which were later collected by a dwarf before the investigators got here. And then he also did a 3D scan of the entire ziggurat, and then he copied that as well. And that was before the ziggurat got split in half. All right, so our perpetrator is somebody entirely different. And... He had been maybe going after him. Okay. Okay, okay. Haven't he been watching the Undercroft? We've already encountered a twist. I still need to know what he was obsessed with. I need to know what he was obsessed with. I don't want to scan through that. They can... show me that they should have those... They should be showing up any second, yes? You guys said you were going to be able to get me the information on what he was obsessed about. So... The short version is this. The Templars agreed to a bunch of laws that bind them to be helpful in this case. The Architects Guild has a whole bunch of ancient privileges and didn't sign anything ten years ago. And they... exercise maximal privilege in this case. They don't want you going anywhere else in the guild hall. They will... The Templars can give you a description that the architects deemed satisfactory for the pursuit of justice without giving up any of their precious secrets. And the Templars can also take you to the bodies which are stored on a different site. But either way, they basically shoo you out of the Architect's Guild Hall once this part is done. The Paladin accompanies you, and the Elder Boros takes his leave at the Guild Hall's door. We also needed to get down to the Undercroft from there, too. There is also the location of the secret entrance. The Templars know where that is and they can send you there. As you proceed to what I presume is either to look at the bodies or to go to the entrance. I'm interested in looking at the bodies. Bodies tell a story. They certainly do. The Templars have their own... own headquarters where they prefer to do matters of justice. We don't have the kind of mental link talk that we had before. Pip might be able to help you out on that one. I have spores. She has rapport spores. When the spores get into your mind, they can create a psychic link You use basically the spore net to communicate spores. Let's see. I give you some sort of gesture to be like, we need to... What is your wisdom, Pip? You have a plus seven. Okay. So you can connect up to seven allies to the spore net. Okay. can send telepathic messages independent of language to the entire group and receive from the entire group you don't have to send words you can communicate sensory perceptions or just like a concept of alert this is a conscious action to do it's not a real-time sensory link it's like push to talk you can any of you can enter concentration close your eyes and nullify your own senses and And you then share all of the physical senses of any one other target. But you need to sit or lie down while you do that because you fall over. So normally it can be like, hey, smell this. And you communicate the smell. At rank two, you can just ride along in someone's head. But certainly talking, easy peasy. we haven't established that you automatically do that, so I give you some sort of signal that you should do that so we can have this conversation because there's some shit that needs to be shared. She blows the spores. They're basically invisible. The paladin is none the wiser. Okay, so the architect did not actually kill those people. Surprise number one. Number two, some other mage came coming in some sort of like... salt-like, petrified-like form came into the room, absorbed almost all the blueprints and blueprint information from the ziggurat model that they had, and absconded with all of it, and left a copy. So, like, they don't think, they don't even know what's missing, really. They would think Haven's got everything that he needs to have, so that's why they're going to be thinking for that. Like, we could still get that information back, but it's in this weird salt Mages stuff. Anyways, long story short, Haven's not guilty. At least not of killing those. You send like the imagery of what he looked like and what he was doing. And he's like, oh, that is a cool spell. He just like, just transfers information. Yes, I thought it was really cool too. I took note that I'm going to have to learn that at some point. Use a cool spell to kill those two dwarves. As far as you can tell. You saw, you actually probably saw enough because you know the Form Eye. The Form Eye are universal. They are a language unique to magic, but they are a consistent language. So when someone works like Force, you see the Glyph of Force. And he was using Force to basically do micro telekinesis on them. And in your estimation, he was doing arcane magic like a fucking boss. Just crazy. He was a really expert level arcanist, quite honestly. And he surgically cut their heads at a very specific spot. Also doesn't seem very much like a dwarf to do that. Yeah. Sounds like a blast threat, definitely. And he was definitely more human-sized than dwarf-sized. He could have been elf, possibly. Maybe giant, but hard to say relative to the dwarf. But anyways, I think after quick review of the bodies, we need to get after him on Pronto. On to Pronto, because he's after whomever killed his friends. He's actually trying to vindicate his own name. And he's about a day ahead of us. So we'll need to move quick. But you can probably learn a thing or two. I think they have some sort of cold storage, you know, in a sub-level of their Hall of Justice. A little bit of cold magic. They've learned that it helps to preserve bodies, and sometimes you need to go back to the bodies. find essentially a morgue and there is a one of the scribes there who sort of gives you the quick version. He's the one who performed the autopsies. They were examined in the usual way. Didn't see any evidence of any health problems other than the acute trauma which caused brain and cardiac death in a matter of minutes. since their hearts simply stopped beating. He takes pride in his work and he wants to show you that he actually has a few bones around. He's like, this is what happens when a man is hit with a steel hammer. This is what it looks like when a bone saw with diamond tips is expertly used by a surgeon. And they look clean, but not as clean as this. like a perfect sheer plane of force. But their bodies tell a story, and I think I feel like you should have some something at least like the equivalent of speak with dead, but not like, you know, movie style where they talk to you. It's like, what does the death know? Everything that happened since they died. The collective knowledge of all the bacteria and worms and stuff. It would tell you not a ton more than I think you already know. Other than that the microbes are frustrated with the cold. and they can't do what they normally do right now. And there's, let's see if there's any other rituals that might be of use to you. System six, how about system six? That's always a good place to go for rituals. Rituals. can endure elements, control water. I wonder if you could conjure this, spirits. Probably only if you have that specific power. You can wild shape into them. Oh, wait a minute. I don't know if this would be useful, but you could animate them as undead. Yes, I could animate them as undead. They would just be stupid. Um... One of the things about the Cordyceps reanimation is they get a debuff called Stupid. They understand only the simplest spoken commands. They lose any spellcasting, ability skills, fees, class features, proficiencies, and memories they had in life. That's not very helpful in this situation. Yeah. Not so much a Speak with Dead, more a sort of I want a zombie minion. Yeah. You can make magic mushrooms. You could decompose them instantly into fertilizer. Can I commune with the spores in their bodies they have? I mean, I guess you already found out the time of death and all of that, but... You do have mycelial mark. I think that would be useful. Yeah, and they tell Kineas that you're not going to be able to get anything about the exposure the person i suppose you might be able to catch whether they sense this because i wouldn't be able to catch whether they smelled so because i guess it makes a difference if he was stone or if he was honestly salt which like somebody like a dwarf would know they'd probably know whether they were salt versus some other version of stone because they were experts in that and that's a sense that they would have had yeah that's true i might be able to even tell that from the composition of some of the body stuff Yeah, I mean, he didn't really interact with them. So the bodies don't leave much of a clue, unfortunately. But I will give you... Roll a wisdom check, Pip. Okay. Where's your Pip? There she is. She doesn't have wisdom. That's not... You have a plus seven. 16. Okay. You get an intuition. There is a tension. The paladin is... You don't get the sense that he's hiding something specifically. Just that he's uncomfortable with this whole thing. And you get a vibe from the scribe that he's really curious what the hell is going on here. And... Maybe it's just dealing with the architects is weird even for the Templars. But... Drawing upon that intuition, you ask a few pointed questions and the scribe indicates that he lets slip an interesting fact. In his initial report, he concluded that the magic required to do this was of a tier consistent with the most powerful sorcerers. And... in his experience, it was not something that psionic masons could do. And he... his... Superior told him to revise the statement, claiming that latter part was mere conjecture. But even that expert opinion, he made him change it to the mightiest of sorcerers and scions. And he thought it was a little unusual for the elders to get that nitty gritty in their reports. Uh-huh. Yeah, your motives. You're trying to set someone else up, maybe? Yeah. And you can tell he doesn't want to say too much, but you can tell he's like, he looks at you like... No, they don't want fingers pointed at the arcanists, is really what it is. They want to be like, you need to keep it open to the idea that psionics could have done this. The dwarves are all known to be scions and none of them are known to be sorcerers. They're trying to frame and make sure that it's framed as a dwarf too. Uh-huh. The possibility. We need to keep the possibilities open. The night is late when you emerge. It's almost midnight and the paladin gives you, unless you want to right now, but he says he's going to swap out with another paladin if you need services after the midnight hour. And so he's still in the building. We have to catch up with him. We have to go tonight. He will send a knight to meet you because you're going to need someone to vouch for you at the site. But he tells you where to find the entrance. It's guarded and you need access, but you might as well, if you want to get going, you might as well get going while he sends word ahead. And in the streets of Tear by night, there's usually not a whole lot of people around and they usually keep to themselves. But these people aren't even particularly trying to stay hidden. As you round a corner, you see elf an Ilyari elf with out of place blue tattoos that look like something an Ashkari would have twirling an obsidian blade licking at his elongated overly sharp canine behind him a huge stern looking fearbulg heavily armored and it looks like he knows how to use those weapons a big fat guy like strangely corpulent for an adventure but he doesn't seem too unready and a bored looking white haired woman who's in the process of peeling off a glove as she eyeballs your party as if to say right on time all of them are wearing a uniform but uniform colors black and red yes i know recognize that are they the other guild as adventurers of the demon's hand the leader seemingly the elf going somewhere it's awfully late for an adventure a awfully strange place for an adventure too. Offy creepy of you guys to be out here this time of night stalking us. Yeah, I was gonna say stalker much. We're just out partying and having a good time. Yeah, sure, sure you are. What do you want? Well, that depends. You little birdies aren't on business, are you? None of your business if we were. There's only one quest that you'd be doing inside the city. And we know your guild took it. So I guess this is where the fun begins. Remember. And why do you care? No magic. Me? This is the only part I care about. And he readies his obsidian blades. But we'll discover... what happens next... next time... in session two, when I hopefully have my official campaign ending video. It's like half done. I figured those had to wait... It's just not as important as understanding the season arc and planting the beginning of the season arc in each of the three different quest options and also figuring out what the sort of show arc intros should be. I mean, you just gave yourself so much extra work on this one, Ken. I've never prepared for a campaign so much, but... to get out of old lazy habits. And at least the work that's done is done. Plus, if we actually use the map... For lazy habits, we've had some fucking amazing games. So don't fucking apologize. But I always have to put it together in the past. I can safely say I already know what the seasonal arc is and how I intend for it to end and what the second season could then become. And... I'm gonna work that into each episode while still giving you guys freedom to choose quests. I'm also going to take the other two quests you didn't pick, assign them to someone else, and then figure out what happened on them so that that will have happened too. Mm-hmm. That's the part where I'm just like, don't tag yourself with creating the stories behind those two. Not too much. You just multiply your work. Just enough. Yeah, it doesn't have to be like full length prose or anything. Just enough to know like what was the outcome and was anything learned? And to make sure, you know, the other problem I had with that original guild game is that you didn't experience the rest of the guild all that much. And by the way, I'm watching it now that the game is over. That, yours back screen, having that gameplay and text running. Oh yeah, that was really wonderful too. I was having a hard time with it. You could have said something. I could just hide it. Why is it totally fucked up? See, I'm glad I wasn't the only one, Cole. And now that's in the recording forever. Speaking of.