Across a gently sloping field, through a heavy mist, lies the ancient ruined keep of Andalbrass. Crumbling walls still stand mightily before you, their grey-red stone seemingly carved from the mountainside. Behind them stands a massive cylindrical tower, half-built in to the rock.
Higher up the mountain behind the keep, you briefly see a massive staircase through the clouds, ending in a large courtyard at the summit. A massive, crumbling statue stands there, and behind it, gigantic stone doors. Perhaps a temple, perhaps a vault. But there is clearly more to Andalbrass than just the ruined keep before you.
The overgrown path is still muddy from the recent rainfall, and as you approach, thunder cracks again overhead from the dark sky. A cold drizzle begins again; it seems this small valley in the mountainside is somewhat protected from the bracing cold of its altitude.
A hastily reconstructed door on the still-standing gatehouse swings open with some difficulty, and a pair of orcs on warg-back come riding out to meet you, spears at their side.
"Uk Kah, Baghat!"
"You have arrived. Scouts saw you come. Say you slew the fell-beast, too. This is good. You are strong. I give respect. Bloodchief Dorokor gives respect. Come. She is waiting."
Here, the players must prepare for the coming battle. Walls must be mended, traps must be laid, and most importantly, the strange temple high above must be investigated.
Bloodchief Dorokor the Bonebreaker is stern and stoic. She wants to save her people, but she will pay any price in blood to have her revenge and reclaim her honor.
Lady Aerona, the young Baroness Sathorn, by right of her nobility, lays the title of Dvar-Shah upon Velka to stem the possible political disaster that will be caused by aid from the High Crown- making her, nominally, the rightful ruler of Andalbrass and a Marquess in terms of political clout and title.
Things that happen the next day:
Bonnie is awoken in the night by a whisper in her head:
Hello, Little Star. I've found you. A little bird told me where you might be, once I... pulled some feathers.
Still getting in over your head, I see. You don't know what you're dealing with, what strings are being played above you. You dance with a candle over a floor of kindling. Some things never change.
But... if you survive this nonsense, somehow, I will see you again. Soon. You may not be as happy to see me as I am to see you, I'm afraid. I'm sorry.
I love you, baby sister. But I haven't forgotten.
You can't run forever, Little Star. And you've nowhere left to run.
Sweet dreams, dear.
Oh... And watch out for the rocks. The roof isn't very sturdy, is it?
(a rockfall ensues, from the mountain above. A massive boulder smashes through the roof, right in to Bonnie's bed. she must make a dex saving throw or take 4d6 bludgeoning damage.)
The party may see to preparations first, or may head to the Temple.
The Temple:
The path up is beautiful and stark, and along the way a weight sets in, an otherworldly sense. This place is powerful.
An inscription on the door:
Blessed is she who found us first, in our pitiful refuge, babes anew. Blessed is she who shines the night and changes as we once knew. Blessed is she who guards our get, who kens the fertile stone. Blessed is she, we speak her name, and are welcomed to her throne.
Encounters: The Temple of Vasna
The Orb:
An amber-glass orb stands floating above a broad Dias. In one side is an indentation of a small shield, in the other a small cylindrical indentation that seems to be connected to a golden dial. If the players find the cylinder key, they can allow the sunlight to pass through the orb and use the dial to focus the beam, which, if it lands upon the door behind the one in front, will focus in to runes upon the door.
"Auld Andalbrass, our refuge, we Dvar'firi of the North. Here we stand to find our ancient Path.
Praise be to Honored-Dead-Father Mohr-al-diin, who forged the bones on which our unchanging flesh was laid. Compassion be for his folly, for our curse of rigid form.
Praise be to Vas-na, Mother of Stone and Sky, who clutched us to her bosom and made us nearly whole. Compassion be to she who took us in, foreign and queer, and to those of our kin who resented her her changing.
Praise be to the Al-Cheim, who hunt our past and our path. Compassion be for they who toil in darkness in search of protean light.
Praise be to Yshim-ad-Taniin, Lady of Jade, Goddess of the Mountain, and her wisdom of the First Things. Compassion be to her who is as bound as we, to this sordid stone and our holy covenant both.
Praise be to our kin, for our keen craft and mighty works. Compassion, please, for us, for we have been doomed since our spirits fled to this shattered world.
If upon our works, dwarf-kin, ye find only our god-made bones, take us forth, and forge ahead. The path is thine, as well."
Spirits:
Within the temple are spirits who wander to and fro, flitting in and out, looking confused. If they are spoken to in dwarven, they say (in an old dialect) That they cannot find the Shimmering Path. Some bemoan that their feet hurt, that they are weary. One briefly seems to make eye contact with Velka, and says
"please, yon childe, the fetters below. Lost, we are, but free art thou! We cannot by any hand be yet found, for the Path is gone. But the chains doth rattle so, and they riven the belly of this demesne, they pry at the seal. The chains below, childe. The maddening chains..."
By the Phase Spider room-
" Can'st thou not hear them! the skittering? fly, fool kith! they move between!"
Barracks/Mess Hall
"Hark, childe, an'it be ken! Our bones are no longer our own... gramercy thee, who lettan be dust again."
Armory (W.1)
This room is filled with military supplies made of dwarven steel- a handy thing for the coming battle.
Skelingtons (W.2A, W.3B):
These western rooms are filled with the occasional crumbling corpse, some of whom animate and attack. In the rooms themselves, there are the crumbling remnants of life. Piles of dust that must have been clothes, the occasional stoneware pottery. In one room, a golden gorget still hanging on the wall (that seems to have once held up a stole or cape, long since disintegrated) depicting a hammer and a moon with a star in its crescent.
One of the skeletons is wearing the tatters of priestly robes and a decayed pontiff hat. It rises and attacks with a spectral hammer. On its neck is a cylindrical reliquary with a gear-like fixture on one end.
Mess Hall (W.3A)
This communal area is in disarray, and the crumbling remains of a dwarf, alongside many, many empty bottles, give the impression that one of the last inhabitants here drank himself to death. There is a note amongst the bones, incredibly fragile and only partly legible, reading
".Adn...h. and the accolytes... finally gave in. Hanged themselves.... the Al-chem left near a season ago. Nothing to protect, now.... Nowhere to go but the Cold Fields. We tried to.... By the Dead Gods and the living Moon, we tried...
-Dachem Ad Syrac"
The Living Flame (W.3B):
In the crumbling stove, within the kitchen, is a small glimmer. A tiny flame, holding on to a speck of dust. If the flame is fed, it will grow in to a small fire that has a gentle, vulpine face within the flames. It cannot speak, but, once rekindled, will leap out of the stove and follow if it's command item is found (a small golden ring, affixed to a knob on the stove.) The creature can survive on it's own scavenged fuel in the wilderness, and when moving looks like a small fox made of flame. It is not a combatant, but once the ring is attuned to, will function like a wizard's familiar, save that it can light small fires (and will happily function as a campfire or forge-flame, given some fuel.) The creature emits no smoke, and sheds light as a torch.
Eastern small room
This room functions as a small storage for religious relics.
Alchemist's rooms
E.1 Study
A ghost here seems to be frantically trying to search through moldering tomes, with no real purpose found. She is quite suddenly carried off, as soon as she recognizes that the characters are there. The books are either histories or very technical alchemical texts. From the books still out, it looks like someone was searching for ways to use matter from the Aether (the veil) in some kind of decoction.
With enough time, Jen can decipher several alchemical compounds.
E.2 Alchemy Chamber (Spooder room)
A group of Phase spiders (a form of Remnant) have set up within a room to the east. They have been preying upon the trapped spirits, but are far happier to prey upon living things. Something terrible has to be going on for them to be here in the Middeia.
Ren can try to communicate with them in veil-speach. If she does, she gets back almost computer-like responses.
"ALL IS SILENT AND CALM. HUSHED AND EMPTY IS THE WOMB OF THE SKY. MAINTAIN. INCORRECT. SOMETHING. BEING. SILENT WE FALL IN SEARING LIGHT. ALL IS NOT AS IT SHOULD BE. FUNCTION UNREACHABLE. MAINTAIN. FUNCTION UNREACHABLE. HUNGER. HUNGER."
The room is difficult terrain. The characters must make dex checks (dc13) for any movement or be considered grappled until they escape.
If the webs are burned away (or collected- they can create shadesilk, an incredibly rare and useful material), the room is revealed to be a laboratory. Various glass and stoneware vessels line the shelves, and there seems to be a table set up for a missing alembic. There is still a massive mortar and pestle and a high quality calcinator. Most of the raw ingredients have crumbled to dust, but there is still a large amount of sulfur, quicksilver, salt, and other such components. There are 3 sealed jugs of neutral spirit, as well.
There are three vials that seem to have fallen on the floor, broken and empty save for a strange black residue.
Many potions are expired or evaporated. however, the party can salvage 3d8+2 minor healing potions from a crate with a successful wisdom (alchemist's tools) check (DC 15).
E.3 Alchemist's Chamber
This humble room contains several books in different languages, as well as a journal on the bedside table.
Many of the books are fiction, and there is a single large golden key hidden within the journal.
The journal:
C.1 Reliquary
This room is filled with stone boxes containing the cremated remains of dwarves through ages. Eptiaphs are carved in to their lids. Around the edges of the room are friezes that depict dwarves crossing a bridge between spheres, a man holding a radiant hammer aloft leading them. the dwarves behind him become more bestial the farther back they get, some seem fully animals. Another wall depicts a field of dead dwarves, the survivors gathering at the feet of of a tall, radiant woman, the moon her halo. A third shows a dwarven women in priestly robes and a massive serpent. They both bow to eachother over an anvil.
Treasure:
Within is a massive ornate hammer head carved from moonstone, 1600 gold, 130 pp, 7 large pieces of high-quality jade, Platinum Scroll Case (250 gp), an ornate shield, A rusty iron sphere (iron bands)
C2: Moon Shrine
This room depicting the moon radiates moonlight in the moon's current phase once the Sphere is activated. Around the domed chamber is a frieze of 27 dwarves, in various states of animal-form.
C3: Council Chamber
A pool of crystal clear water is set within this octagonal table. In the center is a circular inset, exactly like the ones that the light crystals throughout the structure are set within. Around the table is a series of carvings, of an army of dwarves, elves, and men marching against a force of twisted monstrosities, a hooded, many armed figure commanding them. Upon the table is carved "By the blood of our kin and the light of the moon, the way within is open."
Placing the found crystal within the center and having velka bleed in to the pool will open the stairway down.
Treasure Room 2: The Tomb of Andala
The ornate mechanism on this door is opened with the key found in the Alchemist's Journal. When used, whirring mechanisms engage, and then a series of alchemical symbols symbols appear, glowing, along with a dwarven inscription:
"Dull golden thing, that trumpets ring
Appended Holy Andal’s Name,
Seek ye her rest, then to this test;
What elements beget the same?"
If they fail, the character in front of the door must make a dexterity (dc 18) save or be hit with a clarion blast of sonic force doing 4d8+5 damage (half on a successful save) and be deafened for the next minute. The lock resets, and the key will not work again for 24 hours.
Within the small chamber is an ornately carved, sealed sarcophagus. A large frieze (more a three dimensional sculpture than a flat relief) takes up the wall behind it, showing a moon goddess reaching down to gently touch the head of a Dwarven woman in robes who kneels before an anvil. A huge serpentine figure seems to circle behind them.
An inscription above reads:
Here layeth Prophetess Andala, Holy Mother and namesake of this clan. It was she who first heard the soft voice in moonlight that called us home, she who wept at the scorn of her kin yet forgave them their suffering. We, her weeping faithful and friends, erect this small holy shrine upon the Anvil of Autumn, that she may be remembered for all time, by kith and by kin. She hath done more for this world than any shall ken. Honor her. Name her in prayer. She deserves as much and more.
Spake she:
"If a single Dvarfir yet speaks in truth, there is hope yet in this world."
On closer inspection, some of the pieces seem to be designed to move, and there is a thin seam that runs vertically down the middle of the wall.
If the party kneels before the tomb and prays, naming Andala in the prayer (or at least, if Velka does) the sculpted wall suddenly animates: the serpent circles the goddess and priestess before seemingly diving in to the ground sculpted earth. A woman's voice is heard. "keep this knowledge safe, ye worthy. This place is sanctuary to more than Dvarfiri. It must not fall."
Within is a small chamber and a single item: a massive anvil made of pure white stone laced through with angular threads of gold. It's face is a sheet of the same material. Upon its sides are laid inscriptions, not in Dwarven but in Karanii-Atha.
This is the Anvil of Autumn, a powerful artifact. It is, in fact, a reformed Horen Codex- one of the texts in which the laws of reality are engraved. If the players can figure out what it is, (DC 22 religion or history), they know that letting anyone know it's here might spell their doom.
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