(G540 04/11/2023 via Roll20 - JF(GM), KT, AP, AD) YI11 / HAR5

(G540 04/11/2023  via Roll20 - JF(GM), KT, AP, AD) YI11 / HAR5

[Now dear reader, it seemed that many of the people that I have been writing about recently were beginning to congregate on my new home - Yag Island. New faces such as Sparkledingle, Griffolk and Fangornio, my friends and family, Lavinia, Sylvia, Jiggles and Irritator, and new arrivals of old faces like Fenrir, Reinward and Giselle. The place was getting quite crowded!]

DAY 595 (19th Marpenoth) (October) cont ...

Fenrir set himself up in the inn with a nice room for him and Giselle.

Veddic teleported in too today. I think he had been kicked out of Westgate or something. It was more important for him to stick with Fenrir apparently. He wasn't the "stay at the temple" type of cleric of Kossuth or something, but anyway, he was now also on the scene. Always handy to have a backup cleric and it did mean that Sylvia could leave when she was ready. She wanted to stay for a while longer
though, until Lavinia had the baby. Note also that Corhim, Griff and Fang had promised to bring a cleric back from Sasserine, but in all the kerfuffle they forgot - which annoyed Sylvia a little.

Reinward got a room too, and Fang followed them down and despite the business with Gyles and his daughter last time he was there, he managed to get a room too.


DAY 596 (20th Marpenoth) (October)

The Blue Nixie had arrived back from Sasserine not so long ago and the supplies were still being unloaded. Fenrir went to help for a while, as did Fang.

This was all part of my wife's plan to turn the "Yag Barrow" into a colony. This was a good idea for two reasons, the first was that there would be more people to protect the place, and the second was that it would give the reason for why we were there. The Vanderborens were known for their colonies, like
Farshore, and Yag Barrow would just be another one. Any rumours about what was inside the barrow could be put down as false stories spread by suspicious pirates.

I suppose eventually some of the big regional players would take an interest, but my wife and I hoped that by then we would be well established and able to make them aware that the place was ours and well defended.

Reinward didn't help with the loading, and neither did Corhim. Young Sparkledingle took himself to Harmony to buy some magical ink. He then spent the day studying spells. He also told Felia (his cousin who had set up a shop at Yag Barrow) all about Harmony. She came with him later to buy things for her shop, including Red Rock Candy and other things that could not be found back in Faerune.

It's not very thrilling but for the record this is what came off the Blue Nixie.

Barrels,        20
Bedroll,        50
Blankets,        50
Buckets,        10
Candles,        500
Crowbar,        5
Block and Tackle,    5
Fish hooks,        20
Fishing nets,        5
Flint/Steel,        5
Grappling Hook,        5
Hammer,            10
Lamp, common,        50
Lantern, hooded,    10
Oil, pint flask,    200
Rope, hemp, 50ft,    50
Sack,            100
Needle,            30
Sledge,            10
Soap,            20
Spade,            10
Tent,            20
Waterskin,        10
Whetstone,        10
Artisan's tools,    10
Nails,            10000
Planks,            500
Pot, Iron,        100
Rations. Trail,        500
Dog, guard,        4
Chicken,        50
Pigs,            20
Donkey / mule,        20
Kettle,            100
Cold weather outfit,    10
Artisan’s outfit,    50
Peasant’s outfit,    250
Traveller's outfit,    200

That all added up to less than 2000 gold.

I should have really been there to sort out the animals. As it was, the pigs ran amok, half the chickens flew off and several of the donkeys wandered into the jungle. There are no predators on our tiny island so the should be ok, unless one of the people from the village find them in which case fair play to them if we can't control our livestock.

Most of the stuff was just dumped inside the walls around the keep. A bit of a mess. The dwarf masons helped get it all under canvas, which was good of them.


DAY 597 (21st Marpenoth) (October)

The Blue Nixie went back to Sasserine today.

Felia was begging Corhim for another trip to Harmony for potions and things so he agreed and Fenrir and Fang went with him.

They went to his house were Polly, Scamper and Fantta were waiting.

(I should also note that I think there was a green nert around somewhere or she was on her way or something. A performer from the Circus of Illusions that had been recruited by Mr Honeycutt.)

Mr Honeycutt met them after a while and they all went to the local pub.
Fenrir noticed that Mr H ordered a big plate of cheese. Mr H was a dapper gentleman in a nice brown suit. He wore glasses on the end of his big long nose. His moustache bristled like whiskers on a cat.

This time he was after the Violet Gem. He explained that he needed to find this Violet Gem, a magic stone that he said could help the Lorekeeper Society find  the cause of these colour outages.
Honeycutt reached into his leather satchel and pulled out a piece of polished  amber inscribed with runes. He said that this piece of amber was the key to  finding the Violet Gem, but no one in the Lorekeeper Society knew how to decipher it.
If they could help decipher the amber stone and recover the Violet Gem, the  Lorekeepers and all Harmony would be forever in their debt. Mr. Honeycutt was also willing to throw in a pouch of 25 gold pieces for their trouble.

Fenrir, who quite recently had been dealing with sums of 100,000s of gold could not help a wry smile appearing on his face at the princely sum that was on offer.

'Leave a note for me here when you have completed this task,' he said.
'And then I'll meet you at the statue of Filomena the Wise within the hour.'

They took the amber runestone back to the house. They were a bit stumped but Polly was there and she suggested they look in the books in the library.

Only Fenrir could read them using magic, but that was easy enough. The runes were a series of numbers and a poem.

The numbers were: 12, 2, 6, 9, 24, and 36.

The poem was:

Attune the stone to light the way.
At Herald’s Crypt one kneels to pray,
Turn my skull then bow your head,
Lest you who seek now join the dead.
Once in my tomb, my name speak thrice,
A gift of sunlight is the price

Scamper had heard of the Crypt. It was in Prism Academy.

'It's a special place,' he said. 'Strictly off-limits to students, where  the headmasters of Prism Academy are buried. I've seen the iron door (known as  the Flower Door for all the intricately carved flowers in it) that leads to  the crypt in the Great Hall.'

There was no time like the present so they had Scamper guide them to the Academy. There were gargoyles guarding the front gates but they were not  stopping anyone from coming or going.

Corhim asked a student for directions to the hall. The answer was 'third door on the left'.
'We are on a mission from God!' said Corhim in reply. Whatever that meant.

The Flower Door was magical and impervious to any kind of mundane or magical attempt to unlock it. After some experimentation Corhim finally realised that he had to 'attune' to the runestone. This took about an hour, so the others went to get a pie and a pint in the refectory.

When Corhim had attuned to the stone it started to glow and then the Flower Door also lit up. Between Corhim and Fenrir they worked out that the numbers on the runestone matched numbers on the door and pressing them in the right sequence was enough to release the magical lock.

Beyond the door a set of stone steps lead down into the darkness and then to another door.

This door had a riddle on it that read:

Dust a hand cannot clean,
A button a hand cannot push,
A cog a hand cannot freeze.

There was also a perfect square of what looked like dirt on the door.

It took them over an hour to figure it out, trying lots of random things until finally Corhim realised it was using Prestidigitation to remove the dirt that was needed.

Once the dirt was gone, a button was revealed. Pressing it did nothing, but when Mage Hand was used the button worked. A cog behind the button started turning.

They figured out that since the other things that needed to be done to the door were low level magic spells then the next one would be Ray of Frost to stop the cog. But Corhim never used any offensive spells at all so Fenrir set his Eldritch Blast to 'Cold damage' and froze the cog, the door, the walls, the floor and everybody's boots and eyebrows.

The door opened and they continued on their way.

They were now inside the Herald’s Crypt. It was a sacred place that was venerated by all the faculty. They saw the tombs of the former headmasters  in alcoves along the walls, and flowers and notes of appreciation were laid before the tombs in silent reverence.

They did their best to not defile any of the tombs, which was wise of them, but I will here describe what each of them contained.

Professor Magillicus

This tomb had the bas-relief of a wizard holding a wand aloft. The  words “A founding member of Prism Academy” were inscribed on the tomb.

Professor Filomena

This tomb had the bas-relief of a wizard who looked like the statue of Filomena  in the wooded glade holding an opened book in one hand and a wizard’s staff in the other. The words “A founding member of Prism Academy” were inscribed on the tomb.

Professor Orm

This tomb had the bas-relief of a wizard holding a human skull in his hand.  The words, “He investigated far into the shadow realms.” were inscribed on the tomb.

Corhim remembered the lines of the riddle:

Turn my skull then bow your head,
Lest you who seek now join the dead.

After more experimentation he managed to use the runestone to shine its light onto the skull. A secret door at the top of the hall opened up.

In the next and final chamber rested a stone sarcophagus atop a black marble bier. The sarcophagus was carved with arcane symbols and an inscription: “Zimandius Prism, founder of Prism
Academy.” On the lid was a carving of a sleeping wizard. Clasped in the wizard’s stone hands was a brilliant violet gem, the same size as the amber stone Corhim was holding.

Either the Runestone or the Violet Gem had to be in the statues hands or the door was locked. Corhim did something sneaky with Mage Hand to keep both of them though.

With the Gem in their possession they left a note at the tavern and met Mr Honeycutt at the statue of Filomena.

He was very grateful for the return of the Violet Gem and wanted to hear  how they deciphered the runes and found the gem, all the while scribbling notes in his black notebook.

As a reward, he gave Corhim a rust bag of tricks and also gave magical Lorekeeper pins to Fang and Fenrir.