Journal Entry 17.00 The Temple of Water - A Dragon a Day

The party enters the Temple of Water which takes them to a whole new world. On this world, stuck in a cursed cycle with a dragon destroying a village, the party breaks the curse and captures Garcon, the Dragon.

The party approaches the temple as directed by Graykar’s fox omen. There is a single tunnel leading down into the darkness. Just yesterday, it was blocked by a door but now the passage is open. Tars enters first followed quickly by the rest of the party. Graykar rushes to hurry up worried the boisterous nature of the orc to walk in before Graykar can even check for irregularities or traps is going to get the orc killed in no time. The tunnel leads to a large room, lit from what could be an opening to the sky, but through all the vines, it is hard to tell. The room is empty and rounded, the walls made of red brick.
The only feature in the room is a single table about 3 feet wide and 6 foot long. The table stand is made of carved whitish stone with four columns, one at each corner, supporting the table top. The table top appears to be made of a solid sheet of 1-inch thick glass. Cautiously approaching, they see that while the table top is glass, when one looks directly down on it, it appears as if it is actually a pool of water.
Aja runs her fingers through the cool water, then sticks in her hand. Bending over to look at the side of the table top, she sees that her hand does not appear below its surface.
Graykar then reaches in as far as he can. He can feel side walls to this pool of water yet can’t feel a bottom. Next, he uses his satchels special property to produce a long pole. Using it, again, no bottom. Sensing that this might be another portal, Aja goes ahead and casts water breathing on the party.
With no other course to explore, Tars volunteers to get in by just jumping in before anyone can say anything. They see Tars’ head go beneath the water, then disappear. Looking in, the pool is empty.
Morvian speculates, “This is the water temple and by that, it reasons that this would be the means of entry. I guess we should follow his lead.” He then adds, “The temples so far have had guardians, they haven’t right out been hostile in the form of pass this trap or die.”
Aja agrees, “True, there is a nature of being tested by each temple. I am good with going in.” Everyone agrees and Aja is the last to enter the pool.
Back to Tars, as soon as he had entered the pool, he started to sink. He allowed himself to sink a little and looking up, could see the rest of the party looking down in his direction. They didn’t seem to see him. The walls of the pool were still the same dimensions of the table top, 3 foot by 9 foot. He decides to swim down and see how deep this passage goes. It doesn’t go far, it ends about twenty feet down in a brick floor. With this not working out, he decides to surface.
When he surfaces, he doesn’t come up back in the temple room, but in the middle of the day, his head popping up in the middle of a small pond. Looking around, he sees strange trees and feels a slight chill on the air. Swimming to shore to take stock, he notices other differences. This is a different world, only one sun is barely visible in the overcast sky. The smells and feel of the world are different also. There is a fog in the air, the chill making the fog palpable. Looking at the ground, he sees that the ground is muddy with a dark-black mud, not the red mud he is used to seeing in the jungles.
As he circles the pond, other members of the party start surfacing from the middle of the pool. Aja arrives last. They begin looking around and almost immediately, Graykar spots tracks heading north. “Either a short people or children I would say. Barefoot also. I think they may have been fishing.”
“How old?” asks Urik.
“A few days at most. These tracks are somewhat dried the further up the bank. I would say it hasn’t rained in a few days from the looks.”
Following the tracks for about a mile, they see in the distance what looks to be a ruined village which has been destroyed by fire. Cautiously entering the village, the party explores the twenty or so dwellings. Whatever the source of the fire, they see the bodies of the villages curled up in the tight balls of someone burned to death, most standing outside of their huts. Everything which might have been wooden is gone, anything metal appears to have been melted. Even the stones appear to have slightly melted from the glassy appearance on their edges.
About the only intact feature of the village is the well. Exploring it they find it is little more than a basic well. Graykar even descends into the well to check it out from the inside and finds nothing unusual.
After speculating, Graykar suggests dragon fire. Aja, wanting it to be more in her realm of spellcraft says, “Or a big fire spell, a really big spell.”
Looking left and right at the roads which lead out of town, Urik asks, “Where to now?” The party picks the road heading west and starts out.
About five miles down the road, they see another village, this one similar in build but different. It is also destroyed, the only difference for this village is that there are some coals still smoking from deep in the ash.
It is at this time when Tars, looking ahead to where the western road continues, calls for the groups attention, “Ahead there – see it? Black smoke. If it’s another village, it is burning right now.”
Before heading out, they quickly search the village they are in and deduce this village was burned down a mere two days ago. Morvion summons some steeds for the party so that they can arrive at their destination sooner.
Arriving at the next village, about another five miles out, they see that it was burned probably earlier in the morning, about four or five hours ago. They do take note that while this is again a different village, the layout is similar. The only constant seems to be the well in the middle of the town. Extrapolating from this, the party reasons that if they continue down the road, there might be another village, this time one that is not burned. Urik pushes for exploring north or south of the village, however, the party decides against this course of action at this time.
Moving quickly, the come upon the next village as expected. Rather than entering straight into the village, they circle south to further explore before cautiously approaching from the south. On the south side, they are greeted by a friendly guard by the name of Festus. Looking at Festus the see that his race appears to be close to human. He is short and about five feet tall. The eyes are farther apart, the nose is flat and almost non-existent and the ears a little further forward and higher on the head. Other than superficial differences, they appear to be mostly human. He speaks a foreign language, requiring Aja to drink a potion so that she can better understand him.
He is completely unalarmed with the party approaching and quickly leads them to the town center where they can meet the leader of the town, Mayor Maris. Along the way, Festus explains, “Yeah – I’m a farmer most days, I just do the guard stuff at night to make sure the foxes stay away from our chickens and goats.” Aja and Graykar perk up at hearing the mention of foxes.
Mayor Maris is a middle-aged woman of short stature, short even when compared to the other villagers. After meeting more of the villagers, they find that Festus is average height at five feet. Mayor Maris is probably about four and a half feet tall.
She greets the party and welcomes them warmly to the village of Thistlezorn . “It is near the dinner bell, I hope you will be staying.”
The party agrees and the villagers start bringing out tables and chairs to the village center, setting up for a good sized meal. In no time, the dinner bell is rang and farmers start coming in from their nearby fields and gardens.
The party inquires as to the burned villages and tries to warn Mayor Maris. She is adamant that the party need not worry, and when asked about the other village, she says, “Why would anyone want to travel to yesterday?” They ask her if any of Thistelzorn had visited the village to the east and she says no, “It doesn’t make sense to visit the past.”
By this time, the party has seen enough to know that in the temples what passes for normal isn’t always normal. The party figures that somehow the village is caught up in some cycle or curse. The party simply needs to see the cycle to its conclusion to figure out the solution.
They spend the afternoon eating a well made, almost delicious meal for dinner of stewed vegetables and chicken. While they do so, they get to know the villagers better.
Graykar asks if there might be a fox problem, and the villages say yes, that a fox has been stealing some of the chicken eggs at night. He volunteers to help. He figures it’s a longshot, but maybe the answer is as simple as saving the rabbits from the fox.
In an effort to pay back the hospitality, the party inquires if there is any help they can offer. One of the farmers looks up at Tars’s immense size and says, “Yes, definitely yes.” Tars helps Farmer Feron remove a large rock from his field. Graykar supplies a large iron crowbar from his pack for their effort.
Aja talks with Ciscra, an assistant to mayor Maris and somewhat the local healer and midwife of the town. From her, she learns that the town is thriving, that the local, Lydia, just recently gave birth about two months back. Aja then starts befriending some of the children of the town. She tells them a story and is instantly one of the most famous people in the town.
Urik takes to exploring around the town and Morvion, feeling antisocial, secludes himself studying.
They spend the night and wake up with nothing having occurred out of the ordinary overnight. They have breakfast with the town folk in the center of the town.
Graykar proceeds with Aja’s help to further explore this town’s well and find it to also be a normal well with one difference. On the walls is a strange script. Even with spells, the party can’t decipher the script. Graykar will spend the rest of the morning painstakingly hanging from a rope trying to copy the script to paper. “Surely you have a spell that can do this?” he asks.
Aja simply says no from the top of the well. “This could be vital, and I need a perfect copy, if possible.”
Urik and Aja later inquire about the road and where it goes. “It goes on forever and ever, to the future, to the past. It is the third road. The copper road.” Curious as to this strange reference, the villagers have no idea why it is called as it is. It has always just been the third road.
About noon, while Aja is helping some of the town’s folk in the middle of town watch over the playing children, and with both Graykar and Tars nearby helping in gardens, they hear a loud screech. Looking up, they see a large red dragon flying in for a strafing attack. Aja has just enough time to look up and cast a single defensive spell before grabbing her hand mirror, hoping that might it save her from fiery doom.
Tars finds it odd that he didn’t get a pre-vision of the attack and believes he will likely survive this encounter. Unafraid, he walks toward the direction the dragon is flying it, pulling his axe from its support on his back. Graykar looks up and shrugs at a nearby farmer, then calmly states, “Yep – a dragon. Won’t be the first time.” Oddly, the farmer shrugs back in agreement.
The dragon strafes the center of the town, destroying most of it in a single pass. In this pass, Aja, Tars, and Graykar are all incinerated. At the edge of town, Morvion is in a hut studying when he hears a loud explosion. Coming out ready to fight, he is caught in the return crossing of the dragon as it strafes the town again. He survives that first pass, the second does him in.
Only Urik survives the attack simply due to not being in the village at the time of the attack. By the time he makes it back to the village, the dragon has already departed. With calm reverence, Urik starts trying to identify his friends and then prepare burial rites for their bodies. He notes that from them, the only things not destroyed by the fire were their artifacts. These he collects. He waits out the day, and already fairly certain of how things will work out, heads west to the next town.
As he arrives, he sees the next town is missing, there are only the scarred remains of an ancient settlement years abandoned. Not knowing what else to do, he beds down for the night. That night a deep fog rolls in and when it clears the next morning, Urik wakes to two loud roosters crowing at each other. Urik smiles, he has always imagined that if he could hear the words birds speak, what vile insults they would be throwing back at each other as they each try to be louder than the other.
Seeing that a town now exists where there was none before, he enters. As he does, he sees a few familiar faces now stirring in the village center. A few of the farmers are already up preparing to head out to their fields for the day. He quickly confirms that his party mates have also been reborn in this new town, so he lets them sleep in.
As Aja awakens, she is alarmed that she doesn’t have her artifact, then she remembers seeing the flames coming at her and then nothing. Concerned at the loss of her artifact, she rises quickly and leaves the common house and finds Urik already talking with Tars. Urik hands her the necklace, for which she is quite thankful. Comparing notes, the party all agrees that it is a good thing none of them actually remember burning to death – except Morvion that is. He says, “Yeah, I wasn’t taken out by the first pass, so I got to experience a little pain before the dragon finished me off. I think you were lucky.”
Now seeing a little of the town’s cycle, they party concludes they need to stop the cycle, and to stop the cycle probably means stopping the dragon.
Believing the dragon attacks to be on a two or three day cycle, somewhat confirmed by the non-helpful cryptic answers of the villagers, they leave town and watch, waiting for the next attack. Sure enough, around noon of the next day, the dragon swoops in and razes the village. This time Aja is prepared for as the dragon departs. She casts fly and follows.
Using this information, after a few more cycles of the village being burned and then moving on down the road a few more miles, they finally locate the lair of the dragon. To the south, the rolling forested hills of the surrounding terrain slowly turn to mountains. The dragon’s lair is just inside those mountains.
It appears the dragon lair is much like the village, every two to three days the dragon is transported to a similar cave in a similar location about five miles to the west. They wait for the dragon to leave for its upcoming attack then explore its lair. It is mostly barren and more of just a single large chamber after following a large windy passage from the entrance. The dragon does have a decent size horde in the back of the chamber. For now, the party leaves it alone. Their first task will be to talk to the dragon and see if they can’t convince him stop the attacks.
They wait for the dragon to return, and then slowly approach the entrance to the cave, seeking a parley with the dragon in exchange for gifts.
From the cave, a deep voice booms, “I am intrigued, you may approach and enter.”
Cautiously, Aja takes the lead. She enters and offers the dragon a small gift of golds and gems if he will but listen to them. The dragon snorts, “Yes, I can accept your gift for a few words. Approach closer and leave your gift on the floor.” Aja bravely does so, then begins to plead her case to stop the attacks and the cycle. It doesn’t seem to be getting through to the dragon, the dragon seems intent that it must attack the village. The dragon almost implies that he is as stuck in the cycle as the villagers but won’t come out an say it. As she makes her case, she backs off and sees the dragon slide up to where she laid the small pile of gold and gems. The dragon then sweeps the pile back towards himself with a giant clawed arm and begins eyeing each piece carefully before moving it over to the rest of its hoard, all the time continuing the conversation.
“Little creature, I am growing bored with this conversation. You have paid for these few words. I have heard your request and reject it, depart now lest I grow angry. You may leave my cave in peace.”
Not entirely convinced that she has failed to reach the dragon, Aja tries a different tactic. “Majestic dragon, I have more to offer, may I approach?”
The dragon perks back up, its head coming up and looking in her general direction, “Why yes, what more have you to offer?”
Aja thinks quickly and then asks Graykar from some fruit. He hands her a lemon. She takes the lemon, cuts it in half and pours a little honey on top, then approaches the dragon, hand extended with the treat in her hand. The dragon looks down at her, transfixed by the yellow treat with golden syrup on top. He slowly extends his head forward, tongue wrapped around one of his great teeth. As his head approaches, Aja detects at the last second a glint of mischievousness in the dragon’s eye. With a blur, his head snaps forward and with a great chomp, Aja is gone.
Graykar and Morvion, who were inside the cave closer to the entrance, quickly try to flee, however, they don’t make it out before being incinerated by dragon breath again.
Tars and Urik head back to where the next village will be to wait and see if their friends are reborn again. While waiting, they see dark smoke rising to the east. Urik turns to Tars and says, “That’s it for that village, it should reappear here on the morrow. Hopefully, our friends will be back.”
Tars agrees, “For non-orcs, I really do like these friends. I hope your right.”
The next day, Aja, Graykar, and Morvion wake up in the common room, completely unhurt. All of their gear is present also, except the artifacts. Morvion says, “Stands to reason, if they can’t be destroyed, they can’t be recreated. The dragon will probably keep them in his treasure so we just have to go and get them next time he leaves out.”
Aja looks slightly worried, vaguely recalling a loud crunch with no feeling, “Um, I got eaten?”
“Yes,” both Morvion and Graykar say in unison.
Aja arches her eye at Morvion in particular, was there a little sarcasm in his response? “Anyway, if I got eaten, then my artifact is in the belly of the dragon, not the horde.”
Tars bluntly replies, “I am sure it will pass, we just need to wait and eventually you will have your necklace back. Might smell a bit, but then, it’s not like you don’t smell odd already.”
She looks crossly at Tars, “I smell?”
Urik replies, “Not a bad smell, you just different smell. You are a witch and continually practicing your alchemy, after all, that leaves a, um, familiar scent on you.”
Morvion nods, “Yes, not bad mind you. I think of cinnamon and musk, but we do know when you have entered a room.”
Aja mutters something about her knowing her next research project, and a slight objection about how smelly men have no right to comment, then says, “Well, you see, this is the problem. Your items are in the horde likely, mine is in the belly of the dragon. From everything I know, dragons don’t pass waste. They literally metabolize everything they eat.”
Tars snickers. “You saying dragons don’t poop?”
“Yesss, Dragons . . Don’t . . Poop!” Aja responds with a curt answer, somewhat miffed about the whole conversation.
The party spends the day with the village again, knowing that the first day back is always normal, it’s the next day or the day after the dragon will attacks.
They try and convince the village to just stay out of in the woods and wait out the attack. The villagers all seem perplexed by this notion, “Why then you have to see everyone and everything burned and then travel to tomorrow and wait. Why not just wake up in bed the next day, so much easier.” After a little more prying, the party finds that several villagers over the years have at one time or another been caught out of the village and had to wait. They seem to think it is the worst idea ever to go through all the hassle of waiting out an attack.
Mayor Maris explains, “When I was little, I tripped and fell while out in the woods. Sprained my ankle. By the time I got back to town, it was burned down. I sat and cried and cried. It wasn’t till the next day that my mother came down the path all furious. She had to carry me back to our to our new village. And then I had to wait two more days with a bad ankle before the dragon came again and restored us to the morning.” The way she talks, it is almost as if the dragon is doing the village a favor by restoring it.
During this time, they also speculate that the road east to west circles possibly the world and it takes roughly seven to ten years for the village to return to the same spot.
With the timing down, the party heads out to the dragon’s cave. Sure enough, it leaves on time to go raze the village. This time, the party sneaks into the back of the cave, and sure enough, find the missing artifacts of Graykar and Morvion. While there, they go through the treasure and start sorting and scooping a good portion of the most valuable items into Graykar’s satchel. Then making sure they have enough time to spare, they sneak out and hide, waiting for the dragon to return.
When the dragon returns, it goes into a rage at its missing treasure and starts circling the cave hunting for the thieves. It spends the rest of the day and all through the night looking, circling further and further out. The party has to stay hidden form almost a day and a half before the dragon suddenly disappears, no longer looking.
The party waits a few hours and nothing happens. It is Morvion who then suggests, “The dragon has probably moved to the next cave much like the village.”
Graykar sneaks in and confirms that yes, the dragon has moved on. Suddenly worried, Graykar reaches into his pack to make sure the items they had taken already from the dragon’s hoard are still present. Happily, they are and Graykar gives everyone the thumbs up.
They head back to the village to plan for their next step. Aja meanwhile is despondent at having lost her artifact.
As Aja is pouring over the physical book which is tied somehow to her artifact, inspiration takes hold. Can she use the real book to summon the spectral book, and possibly her artifact through the spectral book? Working all through the night, the next morning she announces that with time, she thinks she can summon her artifact back.
“Why not just kill the dragon and cut it out of him,” Urik asks.
Morvion agrees, “We’ve been talking tactics, I think if we surround the dragon as it appears, we can jump it and take it out. If someone is killed, we all simply back off and allow the reset. Not like we don’t have forever to try and try again.”
Aja quickly counters, “Actually we do age here if the villagers again and dying is any indicator, so our number of attempts are finite. However, I see what you are saying, I just have one concern. When we kill the dragon, do we break the cycle and if so, will the dragon remain to cut up or will it vanish.”
After a little more talk, the party decides to wait out several days for Aja to work on crafting the ritual required to summon her artifact. While she works, the others start exploring the land around the village. They also focus on training and begin working on strategies to take out the dragon quickly.
It takes Aja eight days to craft the ritual. During that time, most of the party decides that staying in town when the dragon attacks really is easier than going out to make camp. The flames come so fast, you don’t feel it, you just wake up the next day, the villagers reason. Graykar is used to the idea of being reborn, Morvion can’t really argue against it once he really thinks about it. “Rebirth through pain,” he oddly mutters as he makes his final decision to stay.
Tars and Urik, however, both disagree and spend every single dragon attack as far from the village as feasible. They simply trek the next day after the attack to the new village. During some of their time away, they venture farther and farther out into the world, yet never find anything of interest. The largest carnivore they can track, excluding the dragon, are several small foxes. No wolves or bears. No deer either, the foxes seem to be the top predator.
During that eight days, the party also finds they are picking up small amounts of the local’s language. Not enough to speak it, but enough to get basic ideas across easily.
Additionally, Aja overhears the children speak of a fable about the Path of Memory. This stirs a recollection for Aja of the Path of Silk story from the walls on the Wood Temple. Inquiring, the children tell her the story of a woman who wishes to forget her past and yet is cursed to ever relive it. Aja finds the story simple and quaint, a fable warning not to harm others to achieve power. Aja deduces the basic elements of the story. The woman’s past was her own doing because she sought to be greater than those around her, stepping and hurting them to rise in fame and power. And the morale of the story is that it’s not that she can’t forget, it is that those whom she hurt along the way that won’t forget, and that is her curse.
One of the older villagers calls the story the Path of Copper. From this, Aja recalls that the road the villages lies on is the road of copper. If there is a correlation, for surely there must be, she is unable to piece it together while also working on the summoning ritual. She also reasons, that if the Path of Silk is the First Path, then the Path of Copper might very well be the third path, hence the third road. Annoyingling, this means the second path was left in the Metal Temple somewhere.
Having crafted the ritual, Aja successfully summons her artifact back. Overjoyed, she is ready to go kill the dragon.
Timing events, the party travels ahead of the dragon to his future lair and sets up, waiting for him to appear. When he appears, he is slumbering. The party is ready, having cast several spells to augment their attack. They attack in unison and before the dragon even gets to respond, possibly before he has even fully woken, they have wounded him severely. However, instead of dying, he immediately begins to shrink, and as he shrinks his body hardens and takes on a red transparent quality. Within seconds, sitting on the ground before the party is a small dragon made of a single piece of ruby. Completely inert and unresponsive, the ruby dragon is merely two feet in length from head to two.
The party tests and prods the gemstone in front of them, it seems virtually immune to all physical harm, not that they try to hard. It is beautiful and probably worth a small fortune. It is also immune to all attempts to scry what it is. Satisfied it is not a threat, Graykar offers to keep it in his pouch. Carefully, they lift up the large stone and slide it into his satchel. One of the properties of the satchel is that it contains a special compartment which acts like a cell. To be safe, Graykar mentally commands the satchel to place the ruby dragon in that cell.
Collecting the rest of the treasure, they head back to the village. Nothing has changed, with one exception, the water level in the well is now considerably higher, sitting only a few feet below the well’s edge. Casting detect magic, they detect a definite aura of magic on the well. Realizing it is probably the way back, the party holds off a few days with the villagers, making sure that they are accommodating to their new circumstances but more importantly that the dragon doesn’t return again. While they wait, they continue training, each party member in turn finding that they have unlocked new properties of their artifacts after having beaten the dragon.
A final concern is that the villagers seem to not understand that consequences are permanent now. If you break a leg, you are stuck with a broken leg till it heals. If you accidentally cut a finger off, it is lost and won’t be back when everyone is restored to morning. If the villagers are thankful they were freed from the dragon’s cycle, it is hard to tell. They don’t seem to know what to think themselves. One of the farmers allows, “I would be nice to actually build another structure for the chickens and maybe expand a little.” A different farmer adds, “I guess I could actually build a house closer to my fields and not have to stay in the village every day. It would save lots of time.”
Satisfied, they hop in the well and when each one surfaces, they are once again in the entry chamber for the water temple.
Though they had spent close to a month in the water temple world, the age of their last campfire showed that they had been gone less than a few days.
Urik stretches once outside the water temple and looks around. “Just two temples left. Which one next you think?”
No one has a good answer or any hints. Tars points, “How about the tall one next? Which temple is that?”
Aja responds, “From the symbols on the door, I think it is the fire temple.” The party talks and agrees, tomorrow, they enter the fire temple.
Later that night, Graykar reaches in satchel for a treat of an apple. The apple he pulls out has a small bite out if. He looks left, then looks right. Odd. He then sniffs the apple, outside of the small bite, it looks ok. Focusing, he channels a thought at his new friend in the satchel You eat my apple?
A dreamy response comes back Eat? Apple? Garcon must sleep, big battle coming.
Graykar looks up the sky perplexed. He’s convinced that Garcon didn’t eat the apple, the bite was definitely that of something humanoid. And if not Garcon, then who or what? And is the dragon's name really Garcon?