17: Earth Temple
General Summary
With the knowledge shared with them by Jim Gemdrix about the location of the Earth Genie, Dao, the party headed North, up and around Beshaba's Triangle, to the island of Grumbaria. There they traveled inland, guided by the power of the orb, and facing the cold and other dangers along the way.
They reached an old courtyard, and found, to their surprise, fresh tracks in the snow. These tracks lead down into a crack in the courtyard, straight into the inner chambers of the Earth Temple. The group entered this way as well, and soon found themselves in an overgrown chamber with Dao, the Earth Genie, laying near-dead on a stone slab. They spoke with him, and learned an unfortunate truth. His power had been spent, transferred to a gem of earth, like the fire gem Ember held.
Strangely, he had willing given up his power for another group of adventurer's who had beaten them to their goal. He believed in their goal to save the Shatterlands; the same goal that the orb was driving our adventurer's towards. In a final, powerful act, the Dao bestowed a final blessing onto the party. He gave each of them a choice between power and the location of legendary treasure, and each in turn chose the treasure. He also gave them the power of Dao's Sanctuary, blessing their ship as their sanctuary (and causing it to bloom with wildlife, as well as giving it an extra deck via some sort of pocket-dimension magic).
The group made their way quickly through the overgrown temple, fighting earth elementals and plant monsters along the way. They hoped to catch the other party so that they might retrieve the earth gem. They were in luck! As they exited the temple, the found the other group just finishing off a white dragon. A battle between the two parties ensued, but a druid in the opposite party flew off with the gem in the form of a bird. Despite their best attempts, they could not catch the bird. The other group was rescued by a flying ship and a giant wolf creature.
In the end, the party had received great boons but ultimately was left with no leads on the earth gem they required to rebalance the world. With no other ideas of where to go, they made their way towards one on of the legendary treasures, towards an old magic school -- Galdraskole.
Report Date
25 Mar 2023
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