Journal Entry 12.00 South to the Lost City

The party heads south. Journeys with a Lizard Folk caravan which gets ambused. Continue on to the valley of the Lost City. Find the Light Thief's Citadel.

General Summary

After spending a good month getting ready for their trip, the party sets off.
They leave in the middle of the night, not telling anyone except Dame Imokan of their plans to leave. This is largely due to their suspicion that Lord Madamus may try to interfere.
Heading south, they follow the same path they had traversed before, trusting in Graykar’s borrowed memories to lead them once again back to the lizardfolk fortification. As with before, it takes roughly five days travel by boat to reach Farhome. (Initially the name was translated by the party as Far Fort, however after more thought and Morvion's correction, the party now refers to the name as Farhome.) There they are met once again by Crozzask.
In preparation for their trip, the party also takes some time to load up on supplies they believed the lizardfolk would appreciate. Once arriving back at the lizardfolk, they trade some of the metals, spices, and craft items they had brought for a decent profit. The compasses are a trade favorite among the older lizards while a few magicked talking dolls make a big impact on the only two children in the encampment.
Crozzask invites them into the enclosure and allows them to stay in the mud huts designated for visitors. While not lavish, the huts are comfortable and provide adequate protection from the elements.
While there, they notice that the lizardfolk seem to be loading up several carts for travel. Talking with Crozzask about their plans, they discover that the lizards are sending a special shipment south to one of their main settlements. As their future paths align, the party agrees that it would like to help go along as escort.
The caravan leaves out, consisting of the party, 40 other lizardfolk (four of which are red lizardfolk) and 12 carts. The carts are designed where the wheels can come off so they will float. With the ox pulling them, the whole caravan averages about 12 miles a day.
Over the course of the next month, the party gets to know several of the lizardfolk better. Aja befriends one of the reds who was also an herbalist. As the elevation starts to noticeably rise and the temperatures cool, especially at night, the vegetation changes enough that Aja doesn't recognize several of the local opportunities. The red lizard, named Kiarsha, is happy to help her.
Morvion becomes more uncommunicative as the trip wore on, his dislike of lizards becoming more and more obvious. This strains some of the relations however most are able to ignore it. For the most part, the lizards just ignore him and this seems to make him perfectly content. The biggest drawback to his surliness is that he is the only one who actually speaks the language of the lizardfolk without magical aid. When called upon to translate, he translates as best he can.
As both Kiarsha and Aja had access to comprehend languages, they manage just fine most days.
A month into the journey, moving along a highland ridgeline, the trail starts descending quickly down the side of the hills back into the valleys below. They are told that these highlands separate their empire/kingdom from Farhome. Morvion was never sure how exactly to translate the word they were using for empire/kingdom/nation, as such the best he could gather is that there was a loose alignment of several lizardfolk settlements.
As they descend after crossing the ridgeline, they come upon a good-sized river flowing in the gorge below them. Across the chasm is an extremely well-made rope bridge, one designed to allow the passage of the oxen and the carts. Crossing this, they make their way further down out of the hills.
The weather up till now has been considerably drier than the party is normally used to, it hasn’t rained in almost a week and a half. The ground is parched and dusty. That’s when the rain starts up and picks up with some ferocity. For the next two days, the party walks in the rain, the going slow. As they skirt parallel below a large ridgeline, they suddenly hear a large crash and see a mudslide take out the path in the middle of the caravan. The carts were spread out enough that none were lost, however, the final two carts were cut off from the rest of the caravan by about 100 yards.
The party, having been relegated to the last cart away from the rest, finds itself now with two carts and only four lizards. Fortunately one of the lizards is one of the two main guides and scouts for the caravan. As a whole, with both sides yelling back and forth, the main caravan decides to head on, their cargo is too valuable to delay. Those left behind will just have to catch up. The remaining lizardfolk, along with Graykar, guess it will take about two to three days to get the carts around the washed out path and back on the journey.
With complications from the rain, it actually takes five days to get going again once the carts are past the mudslide.
Two days out after leaving the mudslide behind, the party sees several condensed clouds of smoke. At first, they believe the smoky clouds are several miles away, however, as they continue on they realize that the smoke is actually much nearer. Urik also observes that the smoke seem to be making signals, it is some form of long-distance communication. Concerned, Graykar and Urik scout ahead fearing a potential trap.
Sneaking forward they see that there are two large muscular lizardfolk with coal black scales standing in the road. Heading back, the party begins preparing for an attack and this time Morvion also sneaks forward. Urik slowly begins marching up the road to issue a challenge.
With little attempt for parley, the lead black lizard bellows out a call to surrender the final two wagons and the party can live. Not wasting any time, the party engages. Quickly closing with the lizards in front, the party discovers that the smoke signals were calling for the reinforcements to close in from behind. Two mages, leading with lightning bolts quickly kill the remaining four lizard men and most of the oxen.
Once the lead lizardfolk are eliminated the party turns on the lizards coming up from behind. This battle takes a while longer, however the other lizards are also soon dispatched.
After the battle, the party investigates the remains of the carts and finds the carts filled with dark thick loam containing several large eggs, each about a foot in diameter and about 15” tall. Determining that the eggs must be of considerable value to the lizard folk, the party agrees to keep the eggs and try to preserve them as much as possible. The best idea is to store them in Graykar’s satchel as items put in his pack are kept in stasis.
The party wonders if the mudslide was natural. Graykar isn't sure, can't be sure, but states he doubts it was a planned attack unless magic was used.
Continuing on the best they can, following the path, they come upon the remains of the rest of the caravan. It has also been attacked, but unlike the party, no one seems to have survived. Looking for tracks proves impossible as the rain has been steady the last few days. They find several slain green lizards around three empty carts. The rest of the carts are missing. Most of the oxen are dead. One is found wandering around.
With no other option, the party decides to try and follow the path the best the can. They do so for a few more days then the path fades. Not knowing what else to do, they break off and head south in the general direction they believe they needed to go.
After another week, they come across some lizardfolk scouts. Making contact, they determine that these lizards are at least friendly with, if not part of the same overall group, as the lizards of the caravan. Following them west about three days, they come to a settlement and determine this was actually one of their destinations were the caravan to have survived. Handing over the eggs, they are rewarded and then told that further south lies their destination.
Upon inquiring about the attack, they get little information beyond that the black lizards are a common foe to all lizard kind as they seek to enslave any not like themselves. The lizards are happy to have the eggs back yet seem very uncomfortable talking any more about them. It is a personal and private matter it seems and not one spoken of with strangers. With regards to the black lizardfolk, they find more hints that an actual empire of lizardfolk exists to the far west. Every couple of years raids come out of this kingdom and attack their caravans and their homes. The need for protection is why they lizards have taken to creating forts. When asked if the black lizards are expanding, they do concede that they lose a village or two a year as the black lizards slowly move east. Whatever the kingdom, it seems content to expand slowly in this direction. No dialogue exists between the black lizardfolk and this group of lizards, and as such, they no little else about their culture.
For the next few days, the grateful lizardfolk offer guides to lead the party in the proper direction. As the party nears their destination, they start seeing more and more landmarks from the drawings in Hursing’s journal. A particular triple peak in the distance lets them know they are close. Hiking onward, they notice the ground is beginning to rise sharply. The elevation is ascending. After half a day, they are now high enough that when Aja flies up above the treetops, she can see the party has traversed hundreds of feet in altitude above where they came from. The trees are also changing and the nights are once again getting cold at night.
After another day of travel, they finally top a ridge and look down upon an immense valley with the circling ridgeline extending all the way round it. The valley is almost 30 miles across. In the center of the valley is a large city, one that must be the city mentioned by Hursing in his journal entry. The city appears about four miles across and is densely packed with stone buildings. From up on high, you can see the pyramids in the middle of the city of which Hursing spoke.
In his journal, he mentions that the valley was sinking and the city lay in the center of a great marsh. That is not so now.
As the ground descends toward the city, the forest starts dying back to just a barren waste. Surrounding the city for several miles out, this barren waste only has a few dying or dead trees. Mostly it appears as light colored gravel and dirt covers the land in between.
Also surrounding the city at about halfway between the forest edge and the city edge is a large column of yellowish light extending into the heavens. Moving in closer to explore, the party discovers that the column of light is hollow, the wall only being about ten feet thick. All around the column on both sides, the party can see bleached bones, though none in the wall of light itself. Tossing a few items through the wall quickly reveals that what enters the wall is being superheated. Metal turns bright red almost immediately then white, wood bursts into flames and is consumed in seconds.
As the party explores the wall, they notice a gathering crowd of vicious onlookers on the other side of the barrier. These wild looking savages look like a cross between goblins, trolls, and lizardfolk. While unclothed and bestial looking, some are carrying crude sticks as clubs. As you move around the wall, more and more gather, and they follow you on the other side. Once in a while, one will yell out at you with indecipherable grunts and then run at you, trying to cross the wall. The first several observe doing this catch flames and then fall in the wall, the skin seared from their bones in minutes. After several more minutes, the bones turn to fine ash. Once in a while, one makes it all the way across only to fall in a dying heap of burning flesh.
Continuing to circle the barrier, they encounter another group of humans, elves, and dwarves. At first, they have trouble conversing, seemingly not having a common language. Eventually through experimentation, the two groups discover that both parties speak enough fey and a little lizard speak with enough commonality that enables them to communicate.
The other party reveals it is part of an expedition from Brynthia. Their base camp is actually another fifty miles to the south. They point out a large crystalline structure in the distance and say they believe it is the source of whatever is creating the light barrier around the city. Their leaders state that they have been unable to explore the large structure. When they first arrived, a few of their number were able to walk up and enter the structure through the main entrance unhindered where they are told to go away. They went back later and were never seen again. Those that had gone in have not been heard from since, and that was four days ago. They then sent other groups back and they then returned saying they were unable to enter the structure.
Spending the next day talking with the other party and getting their bearings, they start to notice that weird events keep happening. Aja had initially noticed that the events felt similar to the fey presence in the Quirk Woods, however had remained quiet as no one else had noticed.
As Gigi started getting closer to the area of the lost city and the light wall, Aja had noticed he started acting a little funny. He is scratching a lot more and actually a little irritable. When asked, he keeps saying he is uncomfortable here - this is wrong. It is fey, he concedes, but not fey like back home. She asked him if it was possibly a different court. His response was more to the effect of, 'not a different court. More like something is broken.'
As the others begin to notice the odd occurrences more and more and begin to show signs of being unsettled, Aja offers the knowledge that she possesses a potent charm in the form of a semi-painted rock of Fey Protection. She even allows Tars to touch and even hold it briefly and this reassures him considerably. Morvion scowls a little more than usual.

Background from the Other Group

You and your party hail from Brynthia, the most advanced and metropolitan city in the world. Considered a bastion of free thinking and great civil liberties, the city serves jointly as the capital of two different nations – the Zalkonian Empire and the Cal Confederate. Both nations have shared peaceful relations for centuries and citizens of Brynthia enjoy the benefits of joint citizenship.
Far from home, you are on an expedition to a distant continent funded by the Brynthian Academy of Science and Magic.
Your base camp is about 50 miles further south from where the game takes place. You are here on this largely unexplored continent investigating the rumors that a new magician going by the name the Light Thief has relocated here from the main continent of Arisilon.
What makes the land inhospitable and thereby unexplored is the presence of several dominions controlled by great dragons. These dragons tend to be petty and possessive of their charges. Some are diabolical and mercilessly abuse those living in their realms while others are notably protective and seem to actually care about the well being of those under them. However, all seem wary and often hostile to outsiders. Even the gods treat with these dragons gently, for despite their appearance, they are something far more ancient and powerful than mere dragons.
As to the magician – magicians are magic users of the highest order. Common thousands of years ago and blamed often for the near destruction of all life, the gods finally stepped in and brought them under control. Outside of the eternal and benevolent Emperor Zalkonea there hasn’t been another magician known to be in existences for centuries.
The individual named as the Light Thief has already made a reputation of creating magics and artifacts far behind the ken of normal mortals. Forging a citadel of solid crystal in the far northern reaches of the Great Desert, the Light Thief suddenly went missing about the time that Academy started investigating reports that a new magician had become known. When his citadel in the Great Desert was explored, it proved largely abandoned but what was left behind turned quite hostile on the investigators. After a time, the citadel crumbled and turned back into sand.
That was twenty years ago. New rumors surfaced that he had moved to this distant continent.
Journeying inland and fighting through miles and miles of thick jungle, the ground slowly started to rise enough that the jungle turned into thick forest. Topping what appears to be a large caldera over thirty miles wide, you see an ancient city sitting in the center. The city itself appears old, made of stone (think South American Aztec or Mayan build) and abandoned. By its decay, it is possibly hundreds of years old.
The forest surrounding this ancient volcano extends several miles in before starting to die off as the land descends to the center of the caldera. Several miles out from the city (which is roughly four miles across) the land starts to become barren. Just a few scraggly trees exist in the scree all the way up to the cities edge. Surround the city several miles out, about halfway from its walls and the edge of the forest is a wall of shimmering light, a great cylinder extending into the heavens.
Exploring this barrier of light, you quickly find out anything entering it is immediately superheated. Metal melts almost instantly. The wall itself appears only to be about ten feet thick, too thick to get through.
On the other side of the wall, your party can see ugly creatures resembling the cross between possibly a goblin, a troll, and a lizard. As you move around the barrier, they follow. Some carry sticks as clubs, none are clothed, and all seem quite agitated, ready to attack. However the light wall keeps them at bay, mostly. A few occasionally, frothing at the mouth will occasionally try and run through the wall at you. None make it through alive, most fall and turn into nothing more than bones.
The bones left in the light quickly turn to ash in mere minutes. Once in a while one actually runs hard enough it crosses the barrier but it always drops dead, its flesh almost completely seared away. In fact, as you circle the pillar of light, you see that both sides are littered with the bones of those who have entered the barrier but managed to exit before perishing.
It doesn’t take long for your party (currently consisting of about 20 adventurers) to also locate a glass citadel hidden by clever illusions and mirages, towering hundreds of feet in the sky, sitting on the far side of the pillar (not inside the pillar with the city, but outside with your party.) Investigating, you sent some of your best scouts. They walked up to the front door and it opened freely for them and when they entered, they were then sent away. They went back to try again, entered and never returned. That was four days ago.
Since then, you have sent others, even gone yourself, to the front door – the only visible means of entering this building made of glass and crystal. It has refused to open. Whatever this structure is made of, it is highly resistant to damage, as hard as quartz. The glass of the structure, while transparent, shows only desert as you look through it as if there is nothing inside of it.
On the fourth day, trying to figure out your next step, you see a small party emerge from the forest on the opposite side. They appear to consist of an elf, two humans, and two orcs. They are well armed and carry themselves with certainty. Approaching the wall, they seem to be discovering its properties much as your expedition had. Deciding to approach, you make contact. They speak a different language than you and with a lack of common spells to translate, you run through several languages until you settle on a version of lizard speak with enough commonality of what is being said that basic communication is established. It is later learned that one of their members is also quite fluent in Fey.
A final note about the four days you have spent before this meeting in the caldera. It seems haunted in that weird events keep occurring. Shadows move out of the corner of your eye, items in your camp move slightly when your not looking, there were three coins left on a table during a card game when, upon hearing a strange sound everyone looked, the coins were then standing on end when everyone looked back. Some of the party have reported that empty water skins were suddenly filled or vice versa. The cook even stated that some of the logs she used for cooking were back whole and unburned the next day.
One of the elven druids in your party claims that this area is haunted by the presence of the fey world, though it is somehow tainted and wrong, not at all like the other convergence of worlds in which he was familiar.

Report Date

29 Aug 2018