Session Ten (Graveyard of Empires Summary)
20th of Enreldon, or so I believe this is how it is written. I was always half asleep for my elvish lessons.
Waking up in a room my companions have brought me to, and with a horrible headache and blood stained head, I now have time to make my first entry in this journal my great grandfather’s great grandmother has begged me to keep. I am not perfectly in the right state of mind, or physical state even, to write, but since this will indubitably be the only time I will have to do so, I shall bear with it. It seems, according to my companions, that I have hit my head quite harshly, and indeed, I seem to have forgotten most of what happened after we exited the first room we encountered climbing down into the tomb from the sewers and before we entered a certain room with two sarcophagi. Our journey so far has been marked by the mental absence of Axel. The poor man, he has been so quiet and recluse, only lending a hand when dwarven automatons threatened to burry us within the tombs. There was nothing too fascinating with the room: tapestries, two sarcophagi, and the usual continuous humming sound that has been accompanying us all along the journey. The sarcophagi came with the usual mechanism: a pressure plate of some sort which we pressed. This time, instead of peacefully letting us leave with the loots, the tapestry fell and a lightning filled ball looking creature made its appearance, electrocuting Thorfus to show its might as it appeared. I, with my slow yet I believe, powerful archery skills, shot it down in time to prevent it to do any further damage to our grave robbing party. It is in fact, even though some people resembling paladins may disagree, a grave robbing party. The loot was appropriate and appeased my desire for gold and riches. Indeed, we have collected a ring, two books, and two brooches. Galron the Paladin, so he calls himself, appraised the items only to conclude that the ring was worth quite a bit of gold, and that he was never meant to appraise true riches like those shiny brooches for which I am sure I could sell for quite a bit. Concerning the books, the first page could be read by our dwarven friends, and the rest could not be read. It seems like it was something magical and that no one was versed in the art of magic enough to decipher its meaning. I wouldn’t complain truly, I was never one for books, and even less one for something requiring a certain level of…intellectuality. In fact, my great grandfather’s grandmother was always sorry for her very great grandson, but you know how the saying goes, innocence is bliss! I was holding onto the beautifully gemmed ring until that stinky paladin requested to be the one wearing it after giving a deeply dubious argument, not that I would care for it anyhow. In the end, the dwarf wore it. I believe I liked that better. The dwarf is closer to my height, more down to the earth and should be able to understand the greatness of opulence. We have also discovered a multitude of smaller rooms within the bigger rooms, but unfortunately for us, nothing of worth had been found within. Sometime later, we chose to descend some stairs leading to a locked door. We did not notice any traps, and those were the moments I wished I was slightly more rational, cautious, and judicious. A glowing eyeball was resting on the door’s lock. I truly did believe it was irrelevant details, and that it was a great opportunity to show off my lock picking skills. That is when I saw it and heard it: the humming noise became a strident roar, enough to make me want to tear my ears out in agony, and an enormous blast of lightning hit me straight in the gut sending me into oblivion for the rest of the day. I suspect they did try to give me a healing potion, but was too clumsy and spilled it all over my clothes.
We are now back inside a secret room we have discovered along our journey down these tombs. I woke up and immediately searched for my mirror. I screamed in despair for I had a squirrel shaped scar on my left cheek bone. Why? Why, oh why did it have to hit my face? How will I ever be able to charm young and beautiful maidens ever again? What is the point in living if I cannot be eminently beautiful? My life is ruined. I can hear my great grandfather’s grandmother telling me to shut my mouth and get over it. Fine. After resting for six hours, my companions and I gathered our things and made our way back to the room I have unlocked at a great price. It was a dark room with four doors and what seemed like a rotatable bridge with a pedestal in the middle where rested a keyhole and a stone dial. And yes, even though we are no longer at a resting place, I am writing in my journal. Who cares for the weird looks I get from my companions? A grieving soul has the right to have a moment to itself. For fear of having to separate the party to rotate the bridge, and for fear of having to unlock the doors in an unreligious manner only to be punished by more permanent scars, we decide to back away from the room until we are able to find the proper key to open the doors. We reenter a room in which we have fought many dwarven automatons only to discover that there were two very dangerous traps that we were fortunate not to have triggered at one point. _______________________________________________________________ Forgive me for my spilling of ink. In fact, I was knocked out once again. Let me explain. We entered this one room where we noticed there was an automaton guarding the place. We decided to engage into a battle, but were extremely slow to strike letting the automaton have the advantage. My longtime friend, Faldspar, stood there and watched passively. Bah, wizards! The boy, Kottar, gave it a shot and damaged the automaton. Thorfus and I charged towards the ennemy to attack it. Thorfus‘ s mighty axe did him some noticeable scratch, but I unfortunately missed my chance to show off my fencing skills. The automaton, seeing as I was truly out of shape, knocked me out. The dwarven warrior was the one to finish it off heroically with a mighty blow. From that point on, my mind had begun to feel hazy from exhaustion and I was following my companions, no longer keeping track of time or the rooms we entered and exited. So you will have to forgive me if the retell of this adventure is slightly unclear or amiss. Perhaps one of my companions may have kept a journal of his own, retelling the events in a proper manner.
To be completely sincere, I am beginning to get used to these kinds of situations. In fact, I’ve become well acquainted with the floor, its cold, its dust, and its texture. Sometime later, after spilling healing potions on my clothes again to awake me from unconsciousness, we entered a room where an inactive automaton greeted us. We took turns to throw weapons and debris at it until it awoke. When we engaged in a battle against the awaken ennemy, I was slightly out of it. I was sad for I was scarred for life and for I hadn’t been all that great of a warrior so far. That is when I brilliantly decided to test my bow even though some of my companions were standing in front of my shooting target. Thorfus is again, the one who destroys the automaton with his great axe, but not without having me nearly kill Ir’Alle, our most patient and forgiving cleric. At least, I do hope he is forgiving. So far, he hasn’t mentioned a word about that arrow stuck in his back. We loot another book from a room. I am not quite sure who read it, but it must not have contained any information of importance. By now, my head hurts, and I long for a deep slumber. My stomach screams for a meal, and I am unable to walk in a straight line. We make some ways before we are served with a loot able sarcophagus. I rejoice slightly to the sight of a body clothed in great grand shiny armor and a necklace. I would have loved to pocket everything, but the armor weighted too much for any of us to find efficient holding onto it all along the journey. We parted with the room without having found any key; taking only the necklace with us, we swore to return for the armor once we would be done with our initial quest. We descend some stairs and end up back in the room we first encountered when our journey began in the dwarven tombs. The room is fairly large, with doors on each side of the room, and doors to the north either side of some stairs. The very moment we step into the chamber, a female voice is heard in what would be ancient dwarven, demanding us to leave the crypts alone or to be faced with some mighty and fearful dwarven wrath. Me? Leave gold and riches untouched because some dead dwarf asked me to? The death can keep on dreaming, if ever they do still dream. Nothing can stand between me and my coins and I do hope my companions do share my thought. This is where I will end this entry for my exhausted state is making me unable to continue. I shall write more, I promise to you, GGFGM, if I live to see the next day.
Tarion, the HE-elf and self-proclaimed thief.