Journal Entry 06.00 - A Detour to the World Gate

Party returns to Canton looking for the lost expedition. Finding clues, they head north to the Vanu tribe and make contact. Morvion, Aja and Graykar split off to go and reactivate the world gate using Dame Imokan’s instructions.

General Summary

The party heads north from Kerlostra, making good time at first. Their intended destination is to arrive at Canton and take up the search from there assuming no information presents itself along the way.
Arriving at the Zygarosse river and seeking help to cross, they put out the standard call signal for members of the Cazzadan tribe. The call signal is nothing more than taking a large branch or stick to which a piece of purple cloth has been tied. The stick is then propped out over the water. When a passing member of the tribe sees this, they will know they are being requested to stop and talk, possibly trade, and possibly arrange for transfer across the river. Due to the number of aggressive fish, reptiles, and parasites, swimming across is always the last choice.
While waiting they are fortunate to spot a large school of mrillapo quickly coming downstream in time to take cover. Translated from elvish - mrillapo are bird fish. As they swim down the river, the silver fish, each about a foot long, will leap out of the water. As soon as they clear the water, they will transform into a small bird with metallic feathers covering their wings, giving them a bright silver appearance in the sunlight. Then each fish will wing out from the river several feet looking for prey before returning a few seconds later to plunge back into the water, once again turning into their fish form. While in bird form, they have a wickedly sharp beak filled with tiny metallic teeth.
Recognizing the threat, Morvion has the party pull back into the jungle over 30 yards to make sure they are not attacked. According to stories, a school of mrillapo can strip an elf to the bones in a single pass. From a distance, the display of mrillapo swimming by, plunging in an out of the water in choreographed unison, is quite stunning. After the threat passes, the party moves back up to the banks to see several canoes being paddled down river following the mrillapo. The Cazzadan have arrived.
Three of the canoes head on down the river with two pulling ashore. The party learns that the Cazzadan are following and hunting the mrillapo. As these fish are so dangerous if they were to turn and start swimming back upstream, the tribe use special unguents so as not to attract the feeding frenzy of the school. At least this is what they inform the party.
Vilikek recognizes one of the elves as one who had helped him cross the river on his previous trip. Asking about his brother Vishalay, he finds that the 2nd exploration party did indeed cross the river nearly two months ago heading north toward Canton. And no, it never returned as far as the Cazzadan know.
Trading goods, the party secures passage across the river and resumes its journey north to Canton.
During their trek, Falgrieg has taken an interest in Vilikek and starts talking with him extensively. Through this, it is discovered that Vilikek is a rare servant of foreign gods, Stengard in particular. While a few temples to Stengard exist in Chrailis, an elf in the wilds who is a devoted servant of Stengard is a first – none of the party has ever heard of such a thing. Even in Kerlostra, Vilikek admits, he is alone in his servitude. As a paladin of Stengard, his purpose is not to secure or seek greater numbers, Stengard does not require more worshippers. The charge of all paladins is to protect their home from evil, be ready to answer the call anytime an innocent is in distress, and to bring the guilty to a fair and quick justice. He fears of a coming evil to the land and believes his conviction to follow Stengard arises from that fear.
During their journey, Vilikek never really cools to Morvion, however, he does become less condescending, perhaps concluding that the evil which destroyed Canton was not Morvion’s doing and possibly not something he was involved with. He almost indicates he believes Morvion might be a resulting victim. Falgrieg and Vilikek continue to talk and by the time they reach Canton, a friendship is starting to form. In this, Tars gets involved and is also opening up more with the both of them, sharing a similar interest in the ideals of honor, fair contest, and courage.
During the trip, Falgrieg does discover from Vilikek that something evil did happen in Canton about half a century ago, and when it did, the village became darkened with a curse. Something which caused the local tribes to speak about in hushed tones, yet something that Vilikek has never been able to fully discern. He said it is as if whatever happened was repressed. Everyone feels and knows it happened, yet no one can describe what that event was. When he visited the ruined village of Canton three months ago, the taint of something evil was palpably present.
Once the party arrives at Canton, they discover a new camp on the ground which had been made and then struck recently. Probably lizard men and probably more than a few. At best, the camp was broken about three days ago. With the numbers making up the camp (best guess was 10 or more), it is easy to guess that the lizards headed northwest.
Striking out quickly to try and catch up, the party heads northwest. They quickly lose the tracks. With the lizards moving toward the lands of the Magada tribe, the party believes that the Magada tribe might be able to help them pick up the tracks. They soon arrive at the outskirts of the Magada’s territory. The party encounters two Magada scouts, one of which Morvion has interacted with before. The scouts introduce themselves as Mozar and Saymanna.
When asked, they relay that yes, a party of elves from Kerlostra had come through their lands two months back and were tracking the lizard men back to their source. And yes, a party of lizard men did come through about three days ago heading north. As the lizard men haven’t offered any aggression toward the Magada tribe and seemed intent on just passing through without even stopping to hunt, the tribe left them in peace. The law of the jungle generally is if it doesn’t pose a direct threat, leave it alone. Traveling lizardfolk generally fall into that category as they will almost never attack an elf. Lizardfolk are generally only considered dangerous if you are near their breeding mounds.
They offer safe passage to the party through their lands and will take them to the ravine path on the north side of their lands which the lizardmen had been using to come and go. This is also the same direction the missing elf party had taken.
At this time, the party decides to split up. The party currently has two goals and splitting up seems to help accomplish those goals. The first is to find the missing elf party, the second is a charge from Dame Imokan to Morvion. Falgrieg, Tars, and Vilikek will head north with the Magada scouts and when they get to the ravine, they will proceed north slowly investigating and see if they can’t at least catch-up and/or possibly catch of the most recent party of lizard men.
Reaching the ravine, they begin slowly making their way along it heading north. After two days, they come across the scene of some recently killed lizard men. It looks as if some kind of reptilian wildlife had attacked them. There were still body parts present and several pieces of scattered gear. Not staying around to investigate, they continue north to the end of the ravine and the edge of the Vanu lands. Their reasoning is that Morvion’s group can investigate the attack further should they choose. Right now, the more pressing urgency is finding out what happened to the missing elves.
Making contact with Vilikek’s help, they find that the Vanu know exactly where the lizardfolk camp is at. Contact takes a good half day, as it required Vilikek climbing one of the Vanu trees several hundred feet before he reached the levels where the Vanu inhabited. Tars and Falgrieg stayed below so as to make the initial contact less stressful. The Vanu isolationism is well known to Vilikek.
The Vanu are largely reclusive and standoffish with the neighboring tribes. As a tribe, they exist almost entirely in the treetops, rarely if ever descending below 300’. As such, anything which happens on the ground beneath them, like a large group of lizards making a permanent encampment, doesn’t bother them as they consider the ground to not be their territory and of no consequence to them.
Making camp, Falgrieg, Tars, and Vilikek will now wait for the rest of the party to arrive. They should only be two to three days behind at the most, even if they took time to investigate the attack on the lizardmen. If they have not arrived in six days, it is agreed that they will then head back and look for them.
Morvion, Aja, and Graykar head due west for a small task which Dame Imokan had charged Morvion with completing the next time he was back in this region. Continuing west for about a day, Morvion eventually finds the gate from which he had learned his initial magics. Following the directions in a scroll obtained from Imokan, Morvion is able to create an initial activation of the gate. Even knowing they are on a timetable, Morvion remembers that he had been told to only perform the tasks of a morning, so they decide to wait out a day so as to follow the directions accurately. The worse case from waiting is that Tars and Falgrieg would have to wait an extra day.
Reading the directions, Morvion casts arcane mark and begins inscribing a symbol in the air in the middle of the gate circle. A fog begins to form. Continuing to inscribe symbols in the fog, the forms he draws now leave glowing afterimages in the fog. New symbols begin to form. Morvion completes the attuning spell with the final inscriptions. As the fog clears inside the gate, an image of a workroom appears with several tables covered in alchemy equipment, scrolls, books, and other assorted arcana. Sitting at one of the tables is Dame Imokan. Looking up, she waves and approaches the gate.
The First Scroll.

Esteemed Tree Brother,

I have looked further into the engravings of your arch as it touches on my own research. I recently came across this picture and I believe it to match up well with your descriptions. Is this what you saw?

If so, please open the second scroll I gave you should you happen upon this portal again.

Do not open it early, the magicks I used to engrave it are sensitive to light and will fade within minutes.

In it, you will find instructions on how to possibly reactive this portal you found. Good Luck.

Most respectfully, Dame Imokan, Sorceress of House Elurica

2nd Scroll. (Opening the scroll, one can see moving pictures and rotating spell sigils.)

Follow these directions exactly. This scroll will hold its magic for only 10 minutes once unfurled.
1. In the center of the Moon's Eye - inscribe the symbol in the air. It would be best to use Wizard's Mark if possible.
2. Once done, if this is a working Moon's Eye, it should activate. You will see a swirling blue fog.
3. In the center of the fog, inscribe the central symbol. As your hand passes through the fog, you should see marks of where it has been in the cloud as a glowing afterglow.
4. Three outer circles will appear, inscribe the symbols in order.
5. Three inner circles will appear. Inscribe the symbols in order.
6. This should attune the gate - you will have to wait to see the results.

The party quickly realizes that the gate cycle is incomplete, they can only see each other through it and even then, the image is slightly hazy. Using charcoal and a board, she starts writing messages for further instructions. Mostly it is find this rune or that rune on the gate and inscribe over it to activate it. She also has them take small stones out of the gate, pull them out, and then place them in other positions. After about an hour of performing these small attuning steps, the image clears up completely. Both Dame Imokan and the party can now converse.
They quickly catch each other up on various topics.

1. In regards to Aja’s omens, Dame Imokan believes the only thing that can be a threat to Si’Nassapherion would be one of the gods or another one of the other Dragon Lords. (No discussion is had about other Dragon Lords to discern what they represent.)
2. In regards to fully activating the gate, Dame Imokan needs a few more days to get the spells right. She reveals that gates must be fully attuned to each other, and once attuned, they will only transport between each other. Neither the gate she is working with nor the gate in the jungle were likely ever attuned to one another in that past, so this makes the challenge even harder. She says that the party should return in about one week, at that time she will try and open it each morning.
   Additionally, if she can open it, she will establish a base camp on the other side of the gate, so there may be followers present loyal to her next time the party comes this way.
3. She also has additional information for Falgrieg. Looking into the matter, his father was indeed poisoned. The poison is magical and resisting all cures used so far. It is a slow poison, however, and could take months to finally finish the gnome off. The poison started out as a paralytic, used initially by a halfling who had commissioned Falgrieg’s dad to train two riding dogs. When the halfling came to collect the dogs, rather than pay the agreed sum, the halfling attacked with the intent to kill. He had a very specific set of complicated tasks he wanted the dogs trained to do in addition to being riding mounts. The halfling has not been located. The intent was likely to kill and it was possibly poor research as to why the poison didn’t kill a gnome. Dame Imokan has two of her researchers trying to ascertain who the halfling is based on the tasks the dogs were being taught.

After the meeting with Dame Imokan is concluded, the three members of the party head back to the northern side of the Magada tribe. They learn they are 3 days behind from the new scouts they encountered. The party is shown to the ravine with directions to head north.


While traveling north, the party is attacked by several velociraptors. After succumbing to an initial vicious charge, the party quickly makes work of them, largely due to Aja using one of her clouds quite effectively. This was the spot of the ambush Falgrieg and Tars had seen earlier.


Hurrying on, they eventually meet up with the rest of the party. Reunited once again and with the location in hand for where the lizardfolk camp is at, they make their way in that directions and are currently setting up camp observing the entrance. The lizard camp is set inside the side of a large natural embankment where the bedrock has shown through the undergrowth of the jungle. At the back corner of the embankment appears to be a small shack sitting in what looks to be possibly a cave entrance. This likely means that most of the camp is underground.

The Raptor Ravine where the party was ambushed by several raptors.

Report Date

13 Mar 2018