Book Nine, Chapter One �The Return of the Panaga Saga�
18/09/10
Now is the winter of our
discontent
Made glorious summer by the return of Harn;
And all the clouds that glowered upon our wagon
In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.
Now is Sir Martyn�s brow bound with victorious wreaths;
Aruth�s bruised arms hung up for monuments;
Daniel�s stern alarums changed to merry meetings,
Bowlhead�s dirty robes to delightful dresses.
Grim-visaged Zytsi hath smoothed his wrinkled front;
And now,--instead of mounting barbed boots
To fright the souls of fearful adversaries,--
He capers nimbly in his wife�s chamber
To the lascivious pleasing of a lute.
The Prologue:
And it came to pass that the famous Erana Sir Martyn Yanyez De Barbudo did wintered in Azadmere. Yeah verily did Zytsi the magnificent Khuzdul mason recover from his wife�s very close brush with irrecoverable death. Meanwhile Aruth the legendary driver of the War Wagon with the beautiful paintjob and Daniel the legendary Bard with the wondrous Harp of Galeroth looked down on Bowlhead, the close friend of Gloriana, somewhat pityingly.
Then we talked about cabbages and
kings, football politics and computer games, circling around and around
until we manoeuvred the conversation back on to Harn. Wondered what we had been
doing, what we were going to be doing next. Not forgetting what quests were
still left to do, and which ones we could be bothered to complete, Does nobody
read the web site? Frankly I doubt it, after all I keep forgetting to update
it!
The Quest List:
Rings for Aruth�s Staff
Bowl for Bowlhead
Boat for Balatar (optional)
High Lord�s Roth for Sulla (optional)
We will have have six months off for good behaviour. Do we need the bowl after all as Bowlhead as he has Golriana? We definitely need the rings for Aruth�s staff, just one more quest then. We will do the quests but with more of the Pagana plot line involved. Apparently is says that the resolution of the Panaga saga could be over a very long time. Tick, done that.
Originally, a very long time ago pre these notes in fact, we received a letter which was important from Seral. Sir Martyn was told to get the various demon bits, then we needed more gear and that lead us to here and now. We will be wintering in Azadmere and doing stuff in spring. Sulla will return to Golotha in the spring. We decide we will meet up in Tashal on the 1st of Nolus 729.
Daniel goes to Cherafir, Zytsi goes on a tour and sees the Primate in Tashal, Bowlhead goes to administer his flock in �all places between here and Tashal�, Aruth gets drunk and Sir Martyn goes to Trowbridge via Tashal. That was the plan anyway. So off we go and get as far as Tashal in early spring when we get a message, just before we are due to split up. A letter that is addressed to �Sir Martyn and his companions� that is sent to the Temple in Tashal from Lerudus.
The letter asks that we travel as soon as possible Pesino, a God Stone in Elshavel. Seral had gone to Pesino to study the Earthmaster structures there, and has now gone missing. We are requested to go to Pesino to look into this as soon as possible. We have to go to Elshavel first otherwise we�ll get lost and confused in the Shava Forest. We are entitled to use the god stone at Pesino except it�s the nearest one to us. Zara is left in Tashal and complains about the weather, it�s raining
So we start on 1st Peonu, it takes a fortnight to get to Trowbridge. Once there Sir Martyn spends a couple of days doing lord type stuff and so we arrive at Elshavel on the 21st of Peonu. It is possibly the most beautiful town in Harn, �it�s only a model�, and has a mostly Jarin population. So there are lots of dogs on a piece of string held by Big Issue sellers. Apparently Bowlhead is fairly popular with the local Jarin ladies here!
�What�s your seduction skill like?�
�75.�
�Amateur!� mutters Sir Martyn.
We can stay in the castle or at a very expensive high quality inn. Aruth can�t wear his armour in the castle as it was a gift from the King to Zytsi.
We have to go the castle any way, and Lerudus meets us there. Hagina the mage/researcher who is studying at Pesino with permission of the King. Hagina is from the mainland though she is based in Cherafir and is researching into Earthmasters and god stones. Seral often winters in Pesino helping Hagina.
On the 15th of Azura (which was Zytsi�s wedding day) Hagina found that Seral�s room was trashed and Seral was missing. They believe that there are only two ways this could happen, sorry three, well four. Amongst the many ways this could have happened�. Someone could have some through the god stone nicked her and disappeared. This is not likely as the god stone emits a pleasant loud humming noise and no body heard it. The second is that someone has got round the spell of obscurement. The third is that someone had come up through the tunnels below Pesino. The fourth is that it was an inside job. Her room was obviously search for something. Seral is a mage of some power and would have been hard to kidnap.
The weather in the real world is rather Harnic, as in it�s raining.
It�s suggested we go Pesino to investigate, to talk to Hegina and Lemry, the head elf there. He is one of the most skilled and trusted of the King�s servant�s, quite young as he�s only a thousand years old. It�ll take about a week to get there. So we arrive on the 1st of Kelen.
The Earthmaster parts of Pesino were built 25,000 years ago, and the Earthmasters left the planet 15,000 years ago. No one has ever seen the remains, skeleton or even a picture of one. As many of the Earthmaster sites are underground and overground the Earthmasters may in fact be Wombles. The elves arrived 10,000 years ago and the dwarves 7,000 years ago. This was major trading centre for Elves and Dwarves, communicating with Kiraz and Azadmere. The rest of Pesino was built by the Khuzdul is better times, except the Palace and clan house which the Elves built. Daelda lived here before he received his mortal wound. The Halls of the Saurian, so called as it has pictures of humanoid reptiles in it, is the only non-Earthmaster, Elf or Dwarf construction. The Sindarin avoid this area and there are rumours of underground tunnels. The Jarin arrived 1,700 years ago and everything when down hill from then onwards.
Lemry heads the clan in charge of the security of the site. The only other inhabitants are the researchers, Hegina and her two assistants Charlean and Marsyle, who we keep calling Charlene and Marcia.
<<Trevor is a serious coffee pusher and has a large expensive gadget complete with milk frother.>>
Zytsi is the first Khuzdul is first to come here since the Battle of Sorrows, about 1,300 years ago.
Pesino is an interesting place and we discover lots about it and the history of Harn. Sereal was using the fountain (in the Khuzdul area, a seer seeing type of thing) and becoming concerned and withdrawn. No notes were found, which would be unusual. Aruth attunes to the god stone, which takes a couple of hours, but he doesn�t know where it goes but the other end is open. Perhaps she was getting worried about Panaga?
Aruth attunes himself to the god stone, which takes a couple of hours. Then he tires to find out to where it currently goes to, but fails. It�s open but he doesn�t know to where it goes. We have eliminated the Elf security guard clan from our enquires while this was going on. Elven Rangers have not found any tracks outside the complex. They could have left the area by the god stone, but coming in the god stone would have hummed and most people would have heard it.
Sir Martyn uses a spell that tells him that she is within 18 miles, that will be a mile a level then. So that tells us she is alive and we should look in the tunnels.
The next day Daniel was chatting up Charlene (and rolled 217 seduction) and she told him that they have found a new secret door in the saurian rooms, in the Halls of the Saurian. We go to the location of this new secret door. Zytsi finds it! He needed to roll 250 to find it as he was told where it is, and they had to roll over 500 to mind it in the first place. After some faffing around Zytsi manages to unlock it and has worked out how to open it. He pushes it up and there is a small alcove behind it, not very wide and not very deep. There are four levers in the wall, large sliding levers. Aruth thinks has been used recently, somewhere between the last few days to the last few years.
After some experimentation we find that they lower four statues in alcoves outside the building. These statues are of a snake coiled round a tree, each one is of a different season. There is a boot print on the winter statue. Each lever moves a different statue. One of the mages will operate the leaver and Zytsi will go down on the statue. However Zytsi decides to use a spell, his first ever. Cast from his wedding ring given to him by Sir Martyn. Zytsi put his perception down to the bottom of the shaft and sees a big room with a door.
Hegina is watching us from the pyramid, Sir Martyn and Zytsi go over to talk to her. Daniel goes down to tell Charlene not to stand in the alcove. She wasn�t but she thought it was nice I thought to ask, so I stayed to chat her up some more. Sir Martyn tells the local elf security boss what we�ve found and that we think that it is an inside job.
We get Lemry to operate the levers and Zytsi goes down on the plinth with the boot print. Zytsi starts taking damage and ignoring criticals. This happens twice before his shouts stop and we haul him up and out. Perhaps we have to use the appropriate season�s statue. Zytsi stands on the spring statue and nothing seems happen to him this time. He gets to the bottom and we can still hear him singing. Except for Daniel who has his fingers in his ears, have you ever heard a Khuzdul sing!
Zytsi unties the rope and steps off the statue. That will be into the pit then, taking 20 points of damage and a D crush, which has already been reduced by 2 levels. He�s been fallen about 150 feet into a pit with some snakes. He survives and stands up and Sir Martyn thinks about rappelling down the statue pit. But that wont work as the tree blocks the way so we need to bring the plinth back up.
Bring the statue back up, bring the statue back up, etc and that will take 10 rounds. Zytsi is left by himself for that time. Daniel says send one of the other plinths down, it�ll be down in 12 rounds. Zytsi kills the snakes.
Eventually Sir Martyn comes down, plus +20 Inspired by Daniel for all within 250 feet. He opens the top of the pit trap and sends the rope down, tied around the statue. Zytsi climbs out. The statue goes up and down and the rest of the party joins him eventually.
There is a secret door with four levers in it that we find. Also pit traps in front of the other lift shafts. Aruth finds some tracks, lucky I�m still singing. Aided by magic Aruth says its one person dragging something. He finds that it goes a seemingly random path across the chamber. We have a path now marked with chalk and iron spikes across the room. Most of the room is trapped with a path across the room, magical traps. Rather they are magical symbols.
There is a trap on the door says Sir Martyn, so there is says Zytsi who disarms it, just as well really. He also unlocks the door.
We decide to stop at this point as it�s now 10 pm and there may be a fight in the next two hours or so. We decide that next session will be double Harn.
Mike says that the strange 12 side dice I have is the sum of two dice. One with 0 2 2 3 3 5 on and the other is 3 5. Meanwhile Trev is using the internet to find out about it.