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Adam Spragg
Apr 8, 2019, 1:42:09 PM4/8/19
to theval...@googlegroups.com
Hey, everyone! Wow, that was one hell of a trip.
First, someone buy me a drink. This is a long tale (I didn't have
enough time to make it shorter!) and I'm going to need to keep my
throat well lubricated to get to the end of it. It's worth it though,
trust me!
[ Author's note - apologies for the out-of-character sub-headings, but
this tale ended up being long enough that I felt it needed something to
break up the flow a bit, and to make referring back to it and finding
things while scrolling around a bit easier. Also, apologies if anything
doesn't make sense - I haven't had as much time to proof-read as I'd
hoped. ]
Once upon a time in the west...
-------------------------------
Dramble, Birel, Tagariel, Taika and I all got to the bottom of the
waterfall and headed west to the forest without any problem.
Once we got into the forest, it was really spooky. No animals larger
than a beetle anywhere to be found; no rodents, no birds, nothing.
That's just not natural. There were places that used to tracks, but
they were overgrown - and by the looks of the sizes of some of the
saplings in the middle of the tracks - had been so for 10-15 years.
We followed the remnants of one such track, which led roughly parallel
to the cliffs, for a couple of hours west, when we came upon a
clearing. In the clearing were three huts in various states of
disrepair, which had clearly been abandoned many years before -
probably about as long ago as the tracks had fallen out of use. It
looks like they'd been abandoned in a hurry; weapons had been taken,
but clothes had been left in chests and it looks like the remains of a
meal had been abandoned where it sat on the table in one of them.
As we progressed further west into the forest, no longer on a track, we
started to come across worrying evidence of spiders. Large webs, spun
from silk as thick as shoemaking thread, started to appear the deeper
we got. Some showed evidence of having caught rodents and other small
animals, and as we continued the webs became more frequent, and
appeared more recently spun.
Eventually, as afternoon drew in and evening loomed, and we started to
look for somewhere to camp for the evening, Tagariel's owl spotted a
wall a bit further on through the trees. Approaching it, we realised
the wall was one side of the building we had been looking for from the
map.
The building was roughly 200' across, and 150' long, with walls of grey
stone 25' high, and the main entrance an archway in the middle of the
south wall. The arch itself had long since collapsed, and the capstone
was lain on the ground underneath, bearing a pictograph of a spiral and
waves under walls and a roof. Inside, the building was one large room,
containing two rows of three hexagonal columns 15' across and 30' high
made of the same grey stone as the building, a spiral staircase heading
down in the back-left corner, and what appeared to be a sluice gate in
the middle of the back wall. There was little sign of a roof, but what
fragments we could find suggest it was made of some kind of metal. The
north side of the building was not far from the cliffs, and cascading
down the cliffs nearby was another waterfall, but nowhere near as large
or impressive as the one from our valley. This waterfall ran to the
north side of the building, where it drained into a swamp that ran
along most of the north wall.
That was all interesting, but the evening was drawing in, and we needed
a place to stay. We spotted a separate hut, a couple of hundred feet to
the south of the large building, about 20' x 20' in size, with an
intact stone roof and door. It contained workbenches and rusty old
tools that looked to be of a similar kind to those found in
EnTaTraTaShan a couple of weeks ago. Most important though, was the
intact roof and door, so we bedded down there for the night,
barricading the door with out bodies the best we could!
It was pretty creepy. After sunset we heard a lot of skittering about
outside, and we were very glad to have found somewhere we could seal
ourselves off for the night.
It's a new dawn, it's a new day
-------------------------------
As chinks of light appeared around the door signifying dawn, the
skittering diminished, and when the last of it subsided - and we'd
waited a bit longer for good measure - we gingerly emerged to greet the
new day. The place seemed clear, so - carefully - we set to exploring
the main building.
It turned out that the columns in the building were marked with the
same glyphs as we'd found previously in En Ta Tra Ta Shan, and the
"Temple of Healing" that Sariel, Briar, Dramble, Aila and Torvar had
returned from the other week. The columns in the back row were marked,
left-to-right, with the "En", "Ta" and "Tra" runes. The columns in the
front row were marked, left-to-right, with the next three runes in the
circular mechanism in the floor from EnTaTraTaShan; the "candelabra",
the "Da?" rune, and the "spiral".
The "Tra" column was broken open about 20' up, and some gears and other
debris was on the floor below. I climbed up to have a look inside, and
inside the 6" thick walls was some kind of complicated mechanism. But
also a huge spider!
I started to climb down pretty quickly at that point, and the spider
must have noticed because it started to climb out of the column!
Fortunately Tagariel dispatched it without too much trouble with his
crossbow, but it was a bit of a scary moment.
After that Birel climbed up to have a better look. She could tell that
the columns went much deeper than the floor of the room we were in.
Also, there was a red glow coming from below. She climbed down a bit,
and below a web spanning the interior of the column which was teeming
with small spiderlings, was a red bolt again similar to the ones found
in other locations. She decided - wisely I thought - against disturbing
the web and climbed back out to join us.
The architect was a certified genius
------------------------------------
Then we went down the spiral staircase to the second level. This was
about 30' tall, with a gallery running around the south and east walls
about 15' up. The columns from the room above continued down through
the whole height of the room, dominating the central space. On the west
wall was a large stone section with 6 thick pipes coming out of it,
into the room, but then sinking into/through the floor. Each pipe was
labelled with a rune matching one of the runes on the columns above,
and had what looked like some kind of valve on it. On the north end of
the stone block was a large, incredibly tempting, lever.
There were the crumbling remains of a wooden ladder leading up to the
gallery, but there was no way it was going to hold our weight, so Birel
used her grappling hook to give us a handy rope to climb to get there.
On the gallery we found two ancient skeletons of humanoids about 9'
tall with six fingers on each hand (the "Builders"?) and a blue statue
similar to the ones found by Dramble previously. There was also a stone
table with gold filigree and a central depression, similar to the ones
found in the other sites. Two white crystals were nearby, one of which
showed a vision of this room when it was active, with Builders walking
about, and the columns glowing red. The other showed a vision of
another room similar to this, again with stuff going on, which turned
out to be the room below.
The penultimate thing to investigate on this level was a room under the
south-west corner of the gallery. Opening the door, there was another
huge spider! Not quite the same as the first one we encountered, but
when they're coming at you, legs everywhere, that's not really what
you're concentrating on, I can tell you! Fortunately, it was big enough
that it had real difficulty getting through the doorway, so we managed
to kill it while it was half-stuck there without too much trouble.
Dramble setting it on fire with the help of a torch I'd dropped was a
great help there! Inside the room were the remains of some bunks, but
also in one corner amongst some webbing were 3 red bolts that it
appeared that the spider had hoarded from somewhere. Birel, Tagariel
and Taika each took one to bring back to the village.
It's a bug hunt
---------------
Resisting the urge to play around with the valves and the
super-tempting lever for the time being, we went down the spiral
staircase to the third level, which turned out to be the lowest. In
this room the columns continued from the two floors above, all the way
down to the floor. Pipes emerged from the west side of the ceiling,
where they had entered the floor of the room above, and each led to one
of the columns. Our suspicions that the runes on the pipes one floor up
matched up with the runes on the columns on the ground floor was
confirmed. In the middle of the west wall was a giant circular stone
door, partly ajar. In the south-west corner was a large chair and
console, facing out into the room, with a faintly glowing yellow bolt
at the end of one arm rest, a similarly luminescent blue one at the end
of the other. Also there were two blue statues stood near the console.
BWAH! But also more giant spiders! 3 of them. And these ones weren't
messing around. Fortunately everyone was on good form and we dispatched
them fairly quickly, but not before one of them gave me a really nasty
bite. Like, it wasn't far off eating me up in one go. It felt like it
could have been even worse too. Not an experience I'd like to repeat.
So, with the final room clear, we had a rest and poked around a bit. We
decided to avoid the giant door at first, and Tagariel sat in the chair
in front of the console, as we had seen a Builder do in the vision
shown by the second crystal. When he did, two blue lights appeared
hovering above the console.
When Tagariel reached out to one of hovering lights, his face
disappeared from his... face, and appeared on one of the blue statues!
He could then control the statue as if it were his own body, walking
around, seeing out of it, etc.... It was incredible. He managed to
figure out that if he crossed his arms over his chest, fists by
shoulders, his mind was returned to his own body.
We then had the idea that Tagariel could explore the other side of the
giant door while controlling one of the blue statues. If anything
particularly nasty were about to befall him, he could simply break the
link and end up back with us, and we could decide how to proceed from
there.
So he did. He entered one of the statues, walked through the door, and
slowly walked down a long tunnel, sloping downwards into the rock below
the earth. As he went further and further, there were spiders. Lots of
spiders. Fortunately, as the statue wasn't really a living thing, but
is for most purposes just an oddly shaped rock which happens to be
moving, the spiders mostly left it alone. Although having your face
caressed by giant spider legs is very, very unnerving! But, you know,
if you want all the details about that you should buy Tagariel a drink
and ask him to tell that part of the story in his own words...
Anyway, he made it to a massive cavern, hundreds of feet in size, with
what he describes as a simply immense spider sat/nested in the middle,
being tended to by hundreds, if not thousands, of spiders as big as the
ones that nearly ate my face off earlier!
So, yeah. He backed that statue out of there as slowly as he walked in,
and when he finally made it back to the room we were all in and relayed
all this information to us, he got the statues to close the giant door,
and then did his best to prop the door closed with the statues
themselves.
After that we headed back up to the second level, and started figuring
out the taps and the lever.
I've got the power!
-------------------
We opened the "En" tap a small amount which produced a brief trickling
sound which quickly stopped. Then we pulled the lever. A grinding,
clanking noise was produced from the long-unused sluice gate above,
which was followed by the sound of water flowing. The "En" column
started to glow a faint reddish colour, and some of the alcoves in the
walls around the room started to glow yellow/white, dimly lighting the
room. We opened the tap a bit more and the glow increased. Then we
opened the tap to the "Ta" column a bit, and that column started to
glow red too.
We reset the lever to close the sluice gate, opened the taps to 5 of
the columns all the way (we left the broken "Tra" column closed - we
didn't want to risk what might happen if we tried to use that one), and
then opened the sluice gate again. All 5 columns glowed with a deep
red, and the lights in the alcoves lit the room brightly.
One of the casters - sorry I can't remember who, it had all got pretty
overwhelming at this point and I was starting to find it hard to take
things in - checked for the presence of magic, and there was a huge
amount of Evocation potential being produced by "the machine". There
weren't any actual spells being cast as far as we could tell, but there
was a lot of magical power being produced, ready to be harnessed for
some purpose, or purposes.
While the machine was running, Tagariel went back down to the lower
level. The lower level was lit up too, and the console appeared to be
more active. Notably, another blue glowing light had appeared above the
surface. When Tagariel sat at the console and took control of the
mystery statue, the description of the place matched the "Temple of
Healing" that Dramble had been to the previous week, except that the
power was now on there.
*It seems that the building we found is some kind of magical power
generator, which is capable of powering the Builders' other sites
remotely!!!*
...and back again
-----------------
So, yeah, that was a lot to take in, and a long day.
We shut down the power generator after that, and closed the valves on
the pipes. When we went back outside and checked the building, we
noticed that the swamp at the north end of the castle was now drained.
The river from the waterfall that's nearby still flows, and should be
sufficient to supply the building, but the overflow problem that caused
the swamp appears to have been sorted for now.
We stayed in the hut to the south of the main building again last
night, but there was no skittering like there was the first night. It's
possible that the spiders are trapped in their tunnels now that we've
closed that door on the lowest level, but Tagariel did feel a breeze
when he was exploring the tunnels so presumably they have other exits
to the outside somewhere? But if they no longer have an exit in the
power building itself, then that building and the area surrounding it
might be safer than it was before.
Then we hiked back today without incident.
And would you look at that - my glass is empty! Would someone be kind
enough to buy me another beer?
I have some more thoughts on what we found, but that can wait 'til
later. Maybe tomorrow even.
Bran.
First, someone buy me a drink. This is a long tale (I didn't have
enough time to make it shorter!) and I'm going to need to keep my
throat well lubricated to get to the end of it. It's worth it though,
trust me!
[ Author's note - apologies for the out-of-character sub-headings, but
this tale ended up being long enough that I felt it needed something to
break up the flow a bit, and to make referring back to it and finding
things while scrolling around a bit easier. Also, apologies if anything
doesn't make sense - I haven't had as much time to proof-read as I'd
hoped. ]
Once upon a time in the west...
-------------------------------
Dramble, Birel, Tagariel, Taika and I all got to the bottom of the
waterfall and headed west to the forest without any problem.
Once we got into the forest, it was really spooky. No animals larger
than a beetle anywhere to be found; no rodents, no birds, nothing.
That's just not natural. There were places that used to tracks, but
they were overgrown - and by the looks of the sizes of some of the
saplings in the middle of the tracks - had been so for 10-15 years.
We followed the remnants of one such track, which led roughly parallel
to the cliffs, for a couple of hours west, when we came upon a
clearing. In the clearing were three huts in various states of
disrepair, which had clearly been abandoned many years before -
probably about as long ago as the tracks had fallen out of use. It
looks like they'd been abandoned in a hurry; weapons had been taken,
but clothes had been left in chests and it looks like the remains of a
meal had been abandoned where it sat on the table in one of them.
As we progressed further west into the forest, no longer on a track, we
started to come across worrying evidence of spiders. Large webs, spun
from silk as thick as shoemaking thread, started to appear the deeper
we got. Some showed evidence of having caught rodents and other small
animals, and as we continued the webs became more frequent, and
appeared more recently spun.
Eventually, as afternoon drew in and evening loomed, and we started to
look for somewhere to camp for the evening, Tagariel's owl spotted a
wall a bit further on through the trees. Approaching it, we realised
the wall was one side of the building we had been looking for from the
map.
The building was roughly 200' across, and 150' long, with walls of grey
stone 25' high, and the main entrance an archway in the middle of the
south wall. The arch itself had long since collapsed, and the capstone
was lain on the ground underneath, bearing a pictograph of a spiral and
waves under walls and a roof. Inside, the building was one large room,
containing two rows of three hexagonal columns 15' across and 30' high
made of the same grey stone as the building, a spiral staircase heading
down in the back-left corner, and what appeared to be a sluice gate in
the middle of the back wall. There was little sign of a roof, but what
fragments we could find suggest it was made of some kind of metal. The
north side of the building was not far from the cliffs, and cascading
down the cliffs nearby was another waterfall, but nowhere near as large
or impressive as the one from our valley. This waterfall ran to the
north side of the building, where it drained into a swamp that ran
along most of the north wall.
That was all interesting, but the evening was drawing in, and we needed
a place to stay. We spotted a separate hut, a couple of hundred feet to
the south of the large building, about 20' x 20' in size, with an
intact stone roof and door. It contained workbenches and rusty old
tools that looked to be of a similar kind to those found in
EnTaTraTaShan a couple of weeks ago. Most important though, was the
intact roof and door, so we bedded down there for the night,
barricading the door with out bodies the best we could!
It was pretty creepy. After sunset we heard a lot of skittering about
outside, and we were very glad to have found somewhere we could seal
ourselves off for the night.
It's a new dawn, it's a new day
-------------------------------
As chinks of light appeared around the door signifying dawn, the
skittering diminished, and when the last of it subsided - and we'd
waited a bit longer for good measure - we gingerly emerged to greet the
new day. The place seemed clear, so - carefully - we set to exploring
the main building.
It turned out that the columns in the building were marked with the
same glyphs as we'd found previously in En Ta Tra Ta Shan, and the
"Temple of Healing" that Sariel, Briar, Dramble, Aila and Torvar had
returned from the other week. The columns in the back row were marked,
left-to-right, with the "En", "Ta" and "Tra" runes. The columns in the
front row were marked, left-to-right, with the next three runes in the
circular mechanism in the floor from EnTaTraTaShan; the "candelabra",
the "Da?" rune, and the "spiral".
The "Tra" column was broken open about 20' up, and some gears and other
debris was on the floor below. I climbed up to have a look inside, and
inside the 6" thick walls was some kind of complicated mechanism. But
also a huge spider!
I started to climb down pretty quickly at that point, and the spider
must have noticed because it started to climb out of the column!
Fortunately Tagariel dispatched it without too much trouble with his
crossbow, but it was a bit of a scary moment.
After that Birel climbed up to have a better look. She could tell that
the columns went much deeper than the floor of the room we were in.
Also, there was a red glow coming from below. She climbed down a bit,
and below a web spanning the interior of the column which was teeming
with small spiderlings, was a red bolt again similar to the ones found
in other locations. She decided - wisely I thought - against disturbing
the web and climbed back out to join us.
The architect was a certified genius
------------------------------------
Then we went down the spiral staircase to the second level. This was
about 30' tall, with a gallery running around the south and east walls
about 15' up. The columns from the room above continued down through
the whole height of the room, dominating the central space. On the west
wall was a large stone section with 6 thick pipes coming out of it,
into the room, but then sinking into/through the floor. Each pipe was
labelled with a rune matching one of the runes on the columns above,
and had what looked like some kind of valve on it. On the north end of
the stone block was a large, incredibly tempting, lever.
There were the crumbling remains of a wooden ladder leading up to the
gallery, but there was no way it was going to hold our weight, so Birel
used her grappling hook to give us a handy rope to climb to get there.
On the gallery we found two ancient skeletons of humanoids about 9'
tall with six fingers on each hand (the "Builders"?) and a blue statue
similar to the ones found by Dramble previously. There was also a stone
table with gold filigree and a central depression, similar to the ones
found in the other sites. Two white crystals were nearby, one of which
showed a vision of this room when it was active, with Builders walking
about, and the columns glowing red. The other showed a vision of
another room similar to this, again with stuff going on, which turned
out to be the room below.
The penultimate thing to investigate on this level was a room under the
south-west corner of the gallery. Opening the door, there was another
huge spider! Not quite the same as the first one we encountered, but
when they're coming at you, legs everywhere, that's not really what
you're concentrating on, I can tell you! Fortunately, it was big enough
that it had real difficulty getting through the doorway, so we managed
to kill it while it was half-stuck there without too much trouble.
Dramble setting it on fire with the help of a torch I'd dropped was a
great help there! Inside the room were the remains of some bunks, but
also in one corner amongst some webbing were 3 red bolts that it
appeared that the spider had hoarded from somewhere. Birel, Tagariel
and Taika each took one to bring back to the village.
It's a bug hunt
---------------
Resisting the urge to play around with the valves and the
super-tempting lever for the time being, we went down the spiral
staircase to the third level, which turned out to be the lowest. In
this room the columns continued from the two floors above, all the way
down to the floor. Pipes emerged from the west side of the ceiling,
where they had entered the floor of the room above, and each led to one
of the columns. Our suspicions that the runes on the pipes one floor up
matched up with the runes on the columns on the ground floor was
confirmed. In the middle of the west wall was a giant circular stone
door, partly ajar. In the south-west corner was a large chair and
console, facing out into the room, with a faintly glowing yellow bolt
at the end of one arm rest, a similarly luminescent blue one at the end
of the other. Also there were two blue statues stood near the console.
BWAH! But also more giant spiders! 3 of them. And these ones weren't
messing around. Fortunately everyone was on good form and we dispatched
them fairly quickly, but not before one of them gave me a really nasty
bite. Like, it wasn't far off eating me up in one go. It felt like it
could have been even worse too. Not an experience I'd like to repeat.
So, with the final room clear, we had a rest and poked around a bit. We
decided to avoid the giant door at first, and Tagariel sat in the chair
in front of the console, as we had seen a Builder do in the vision
shown by the second crystal. When he did, two blue lights appeared
hovering above the console.
When Tagariel reached out to one of hovering lights, his face
disappeared from his... face, and appeared on one of the blue statues!
He could then control the statue as if it were his own body, walking
around, seeing out of it, etc.... It was incredible. He managed to
figure out that if he crossed his arms over his chest, fists by
shoulders, his mind was returned to his own body.
We then had the idea that Tagariel could explore the other side of the
giant door while controlling one of the blue statues. If anything
particularly nasty were about to befall him, he could simply break the
link and end up back with us, and we could decide how to proceed from
there.
So he did. He entered one of the statues, walked through the door, and
slowly walked down a long tunnel, sloping downwards into the rock below
the earth. As he went further and further, there were spiders. Lots of
spiders. Fortunately, as the statue wasn't really a living thing, but
is for most purposes just an oddly shaped rock which happens to be
moving, the spiders mostly left it alone. Although having your face
caressed by giant spider legs is very, very unnerving! But, you know,
if you want all the details about that you should buy Tagariel a drink
and ask him to tell that part of the story in his own words...
Anyway, he made it to a massive cavern, hundreds of feet in size, with
what he describes as a simply immense spider sat/nested in the middle,
being tended to by hundreds, if not thousands, of spiders as big as the
ones that nearly ate my face off earlier!
So, yeah. He backed that statue out of there as slowly as he walked in,
and when he finally made it back to the room we were all in and relayed
all this information to us, he got the statues to close the giant door,
and then did his best to prop the door closed with the statues
themselves.
After that we headed back up to the second level, and started figuring
out the taps and the lever.
I've got the power!
-------------------
We opened the "En" tap a small amount which produced a brief trickling
sound which quickly stopped. Then we pulled the lever. A grinding,
clanking noise was produced from the long-unused sluice gate above,
which was followed by the sound of water flowing. The "En" column
started to glow a faint reddish colour, and some of the alcoves in the
walls around the room started to glow yellow/white, dimly lighting the
room. We opened the tap a bit more and the glow increased. Then we
opened the tap to the "Ta" column a bit, and that column started to
glow red too.
We reset the lever to close the sluice gate, opened the taps to 5 of
the columns all the way (we left the broken "Tra" column closed - we
didn't want to risk what might happen if we tried to use that one), and
then opened the sluice gate again. All 5 columns glowed with a deep
red, and the lights in the alcoves lit the room brightly.
One of the casters - sorry I can't remember who, it had all got pretty
overwhelming at this point and I was starting to find it hard to take
things in - checked for the presence of magic, and there was a huge
amount of Evocation potential being produced by "the machine". There
weren't any actual spells being cast as far as we could tell, but there
was a lot of magical power being produced, ready to be harnessed for
some purpose, or purposes.
While the machine was running, Tagariel went back down to the lower
level. The lower level was lit up too, and the console appeared to be
more active. Notably, another blue glowing light had appeared above the
surface. When Tagariel sat at the console and took control of the
mystery statue, the description of the place matched the "Temple of
Healing" that Dramble had been to the previous week, except that the
power was now on there.
*It seems that the building we found is some kind of magical power
generator, which is capable of powering the Builders' other sites
remotely!!!*
...and back again
-----------------
So, yeah, that was a lot to take in, and a long day.
We shut down the power generator after that, and closed the valves on
the pipes. When we went back outside and checked the building, we
noticed that the swamp at the north end of the castle was now drained.
The river from the waterfall that's nearby still flows, and should be
sufficient to supply the building, but the overflow problem that caused
the swamp appears to have been sorted for now.
We stayed in the hut to the south of the main building again last
night, but there was no skittering like there was the first night. It's
possible that the spiders are trapped in their tunnels now that we've
closed that door on the lowest level, but Tagariel did feel a breeze
when he was exploring the tunnels so presumably they have other exits
to the outside somewhere? But if they no longer have an exit in the
power building itself, then that building and the area surrounding it
might be safer than it was before.
Then we hiked back today without incident.
And would you look at that - my glass is empty! Would someone be kind
enough to buy me another beer?
I have some more thoughts on what we found, but that can wait 'til
later. Maybe tomorrow even.
Bran.
Rico
Apr 8, 2019, 5:39:41 PM4/8/19
to theval...@googlegroups.com
"The architect was a certified genius"
Bruce R Cordell, is that you?
On Monday, 8 April 2019 18:42:09 UTC+1, Adam Spragg wrote:
Hey, everyone! Wow, that was one hell of a trip.
....
*snip*
Adam Spragg
Apr 9, 2019, 9:38:45 AM4/9/19
to theval...@googlegroups.com
So, I've been thinking, right.
When we were out this last weekend at... let's call it the "Temple of
Power", there were a bunch of the red bolts around. When Birel climbed
up and inside the broken "Tra" tower, she saw there was a red bolt
connected to the inside, as part of the mechanism itself. And a bunch
of them had been collected - either by a spider or by one of the
Builders - into the bunk room on the second level. Plus, when we set
the machine running, the columns themselves glowed red.
So... what if the colours of the bolts have a particular significance?
That would make the red bolts have something to do with power. Maybe
with magical power. Almost certainly to with generating it, but also
maybe transmitting or receiving it?
There were blue bolts in both the chair powering the statue control
system, and in the statues themselves - the ones at the Temple of
Power, and the ones at the "Temple of Healing" - so maybe the blue bolts
have to do with creating some kind of link between two places, allowing
one to control the other from a distance.
Although Sariel said that when Torvar took the blue bolt from a statue
in the Temple of Healing and used it to open a door, that seemed to
work by proximity, which means it might not only be for controlling
things at a distance?
The yellow bolt in the control chair could be for receiving power? That
would explain how it became more powerful and capable of controlling
the statue at the Temple of Healing once the machine was running, and
why the lights appeared at EnTaTraTaShan according to Kazkan and
others at the same time - EnTaTraTaShan had a yellow bolt (along with
green and purple) in its mechanism. Although that doesn't explain how
the Temple of Healing gained power when the machine was running,
because no yellow bolt was found there; but then again just because
no-one found one, that doesn't necessarily mean there aren't any there.
Green might have something to do with life? Sariel said that one made a
device capable of magical healing, but another made a blade unnaturally
sharp. That might be a life-and-death thing, with the power to do harm
and to heal, but the blade also cut easily through an inanimate table,
so maybe it's not tied to life? Maybe it's a creation-and-destruction
thing?
That leaves purple and orange, which were the other two colours in the
mechanism at EnTaTraTaShan. There was a purple bolt in the purple
socket, but no orange one - and I don't think anyone has found an
orange one anywhere so far.
What do other people think? Am I on to something? Right idea, wrong
explanations maybe? Or totally off base?
Bryar, you figured out a bunch of stuff to do with the runes really
quickly - what do you think?
Bran.
When we were out this last weekend at... let's call it the "Temple of
Power", there were a bunch of the red bolts around. When Birel climbed
up and inside the broken "Tra" tower, she saw there was a red bolt
connected to the inside, as part of the mechanism itself. And a bunch
of them had been collected - either by a spider or by one of the
Builders - into the bunk room on the second level. Plus, when we set
the machine running, the columns themselves glowed red.
So... what if the colours of the bolts have a particular significance?
That would make the red bolts have something to do with power. Maybe
with magical power. Almost certainly to with generating it, but also
maybe transmitting or receiving it?
There were blue bolts in both the chair powering the statue control
system, and in the statues themselves - the ones at the Temple of
Power, and the ones at the "Temple of Healing" - so maybe the blue bolts
have to do with creating some kind of link between two places, allowing
one to control the other from a distance.
Although Sariel said that when Torvar took the blue bolt from a statue
in the Temple of Healing and used it to open a door, that seemed to
work by proximity, which means it might not only be for controlling
things at a distance?
The yellow bolt in the control chair could be for receiving power? That
would explain how it became more powerful and capable of controlling
the statue at the Temple of Healing once the machine was running, and
why the lights appeared at EnTaTraTaShan according to Kazkan and
others at the same time - EnTaTraTaShan had a yellow bolt (along with
green and purple) in its mechanism. Although that doesn't explain how
the Temple of Healing gained power when the machine was running,
because no yellow bolt was found there; but then again just because
no-one found one, that doesn't necessarily mean there aren't any there.
Green might have something to do with life? Sariel said that one made a
device capable of magical healing, but another made a blade unnaturally
sharp. That might be a life-and-death thing, with the power to do harm
and to heal, but the blade also cut easily through an inanimate table,
so maybe it's not tied to life? Maybe it's a creation-and-destruction
thing?
That leaves purple and orange, which were the other two colours in the
mechanism at EnTaTraTaShan. There was a purple bolt in the purple
socket, but no orange one - and I don't think anyone has found an
orange one anywhere so far.
What do other people think? Am I on to something? Right idea, wrong
explanations maybe? Or totally off base?
Bryar, you figured out a bunch of stuff to do with the runes really
quickly - what do you think?
Bran.
Rory Cullen
Apr 11, 2019, 7:05:44 AM4/11/19
to The Valley
"A good tale, fairly told" and also a fair accounting and generally accurate. Well done, Bran!
I would like to add some clarifications and observations of my own - informally, for the reference of the layperson, rather than as an essay or even monograph per se.
Firstly we fought two main types of spiders in the ruins - a "medium" sized variant, roughly equivalent in mass to a human or dwarf, but lower to the ground and covering a wider footprint; and a "large" variant, approximately horse or ogre sized (though again obviously different in proportions, as above). The medium spiders exhibited rapid movement - a humanoid would be unlikely to outrun one over a short distance - and a venomous bite which I estimate would be potent enough to kill or seriously injure an average adult human from a single application. They are also, despite their size, as able to move vertically and in an inverted fashion as any household arachnid, which gives them a significant ambush capability.
Their senses seem approximately as keen as ours; not weak, but not undefeatable by sufficiently subtle movements. Their nocturnal movements and preference for deeper habitats strongly imply the ability to see in the dark. They exhibit strong instinctive behaviour but no apparent adaptation or anticipation and I hypothesise they are not intelligent in the way we would consider ourselves to be intelligent.
The single specimen of the large variant was sufficiently impeded by trying to squeeze its bulk through the doorway to which my colleague alluded that it provided limited data on its capabilities, but I feel we may safely infer similar qualities as its smaller brethren - albeit more dangerous.
If it is necessary to fight such creatures, doing so in a space that is confining to them but not to us seems like a very useful way of amending the odds of success and I would heartily recommend it where the battlefield permits such maneuvers. Tactics!
My expedition into the spider lair behind the vault door by proxy led me to notice numerous side-tunnels at a variety of angles - any further expedition would be at constant danger of ambush from an unexpected source. I observed approximately 100 visible individuals (of the Large variant spider) in the open chamber that was as far as I felt able to penetrate on this occasion. They appeared to be attending to a single individual (which I shall designate a "Queen" variant, although questions clearly remain over the creatures' reproductive cycle and societal structure, if any) who was approximately fifty feet in diameter, with a central head/thorax/abdomen arrangement the size of a large cottage.
The "statue" device which we used to safely investigate the lair was able to see in darkness (approximately 60', equivalent to elf-vision - interesting similarity, perhaps a technical limitation? Investigate for possible footnote later) however the chamber was too large to see any further exits. I also did not observe any potential valuables, nor any sign of Builder technology or other points of interest.
Whilst the construction of a passageway and such a large underground chamber - not to mention the installation of a vault door - suggest that the lower levels served some purpose in the operation of this "power station" that purpose is unclear.
Hypothesis: could the underground spider lair have served as a drain or sump for the hydro-evocative mechanism? Has our brief operation of the complex submerged the unfortunate arachnids and was this the reason for their lack of apparent activity on the subsequent evening?
The sturdiness and wheel-locking mechanism - but, crucially, lack of keylocks, combinations, traps etc etc - of the vault door do point to an industrial rather than a security purpose. I would recommend exceptional caution before opening the vault door under any circumstances, however.
The operation of the "statues" is straightforward and has already been detailed by my colleague. No special affinity or magical aptitude appears to be necessary, although this bears further testing. The statues, where present, are likely to be an important asset for future exploration of Builder areas that may be inimical to metahuman wellbeing. Their melee combat capabilities are also significant.
The precise role of the vari-coloured "bolts" we have been finding in the ruins requires further examination, ideally by myself or someone else with the capability of detecting magical auras. I have tentatively associated the red bolts, as with the red glow of the operating hydro-evocative system, with evocation magic; the complex multidisciplinary magics required for the "statue control panel" - divination and illusion, at the very least, possibly conjuration as well - may correspond to yellow and blue bolts.
It is also possible that the Builders viewed and perhaps used magic in a very different way from the accepted forms of wizardry we know today, and that the bolts do not match exactly to the schools of magic - themselves a largely artificial taxonomy, and open to substantial subjective analysis - recognised by valley spellcasters.
The "lights in the sky" currently exercising the imaginations of the populace seem to match the times of operation of the "power station" and with careful observation may well lead us to a fourth Builder installation that holds further data.
I note with gratitude the questions raised by our Tiefling associate regarding the decline and fall of this series of Builder outposts (if not their civilisation as a whole; we may infer that at least the power station was abandoned hurriedly and not re-occupied, due to the presence of Builder skeletons) and I think that we should keep them in mind, but I do not feel that paranoia should yet prevent us from further investigation of these most fascinating relics.
My differences of opinion with the eminent Dr. Cordell are laid out in full in my thesis, "Walk Round The Entire Pyramid To Get To The Stairs Every Time, Are You Mad?: An Examination of Certain Theories of Giant-Era Architecture" (TAW Press, 5gp) and I shall not belabour the obvious correctness of its points in this volume.
- Tagariel
Rory Cullen
Apr 11, 2019, 7:12:43 AM4/11/19
to The Valley
OOC: Ed, I want to get hold of all the bolts we've found so far and examine them using Detect Magic
R.
Ed Chivers
Apr 11, 2019, 2:59:32 PM4/11/19
to The Valley
Well that would certainly be an interesting thing to do. From what I remember you will have the following split between various party members in the home valley - blue, green, yellow and red. Assuming you took the blue and red ones from the chair in the bottom floor of the "Temple of Power". The first party out found green, yellow and purple in the hidden room at Entatratashan, but left them behind...
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