Knowledge granted
As Hawk sits and methodically skins one of the bear carcases, he glances up and notices that the other bear is still breathing. He glances round; none of his companions are close enough to notice, most of them still searching the inside of the bears cave for clues.
Hawk moves around to the still-living bear and quickly cleans its' wounds. He than grabs one of each of the bears rear legs and heaving as hard as he can, he drags the bear along the canyon, away from the cave. It takes a while and is slow-going, but eventually the bear is nearly one hundred meters away from the cave.
Hawk sits for a moment to get his breath, and as he does so, the bear regains consciousness. The two circle each other, the bear trying to return to the safety of its cave and Hawk trying to keep it away from the cave to avoid having to kill it again.
Eventually the bear sniffs the air and seems to get the message. It backs off slowly, snarls and stumbles away in an easterly direction. Hawk watches it go and then returns to his friends at the cave. His conscience feeling slightly better than it did earlier.
Janin looks up. "Ah Hawk, good of you to join us." The Silver Flamer says, undertones of sarcasm are barely detectable in his voice. Before the two can start another argument, Vaelas steps in.
"We're just arranging search procedures to try and get us to the end of this map. I'm going to search along the top of the canyon cliff. Dua, Janin and Dirk are going to search the inside of the cave. Can I suggest that you help Avalon and D-Ablow search along the bottom of the canyon wall, to check that there aren't any other caves we have missed?"
Hawk nods and sets off to search with the Halfling and his Clawfoot dinosaur.
The day wears on, and the hours pass away as they all search. As the light of day begins to fade, none of the heroes have found anything new and they all return to the bears cave with a feeling of slight frustration.
As he is about to descend from the top of the canyon cliff, Vaelas' keen Elven eyes spots a lone figure moving, about a mile to the south of him. Squinting into the fading light, he can just make out enough detail to determine that it is a Hobgoblin riding a Warg. Vaelas judges it to be a concern but not an immediate threat.
When they are all back at the cave in the canyon floor, they sit round and discuss the facts that they know, in the hope that something new will occur to them.
"Dua, remind us what you learnt about Kalashtar from the library in Starilaskur." Asks Janin.
"Well, they are said to generally be honourable and just folk. They follow a religion called 'Il Yannah', which is also known as the Path of Light. Their ethos seems..."
Suddenly Hawk interrupts Dua's recap.
"Il Yannah rewards the faithful!" His companions exchange a few blank glances. "Il Yannah is the Path of Light! Of course! I bet that sun-rise is the key. As the sun rises tomorrow morning, I bet that the light through the three slits in the cave will reveal something to us. In fact, why wait, let's go look now!"
With that, he removes his armour and squirms his way up the spiral passage to the upper cave. He pulls some fishing wire from a pocket and uses it to try and predict where the suns rays will fall when the sun rises the next morning.
Surprisingly enough, the light from all three slits seem to converge on a single spot, about the size of a human child’s head, on the wall behind the slits in the cave wall.
"Aha!" He cries with success, a smug grin plastered all over his face. "Uneducated savage they call me. Who's the smart one now eh?" He looks round, but is disappointed to see that only Dua has followed him up into the cave to share in his moment of revelation.
Dua smiles silently and nods at him before producing some chalk and drawing a circle around the lump on the cave wall where the suns rays will converge. They both examine the lump of rock, but seeing nothing unusual about it; they conclude that the sun must be they key to revealing their theory to be true.
They head back down to the lower cave and inform the others of their findings. It is soon agree that they should bed down for the night and check the cave wall again at sunrise. They set watch and settle down for the night.
During his watch, Hawk fashions the bear skin to be wearable with the bears head and teeth resting on his own head. The shifter considers donning his new headgear and waking Janin to see if he can scare him though. He eventually decides it is below him though and resumes the task of cleaning the skin.
Many hours later, a few moments before the sun is due to rise, Dua, Avalon, Dirk, Hawk and Vaelas all climb up the narrow spiral passageway to the upper cave and eagerly await the first rays of dawn. Janin stays in the lower cave and keeps an eye out for D-ablow and their pack mule.
The seconds slowly pass and after what seems like an age, the sun finally rises and its rays burst through the cracks in the cave wall, and converge on the chalk-circled lump of rock on the cave wall.
"That's pretty. Is something meant to happen?" Asks Vaelas disappointedly.
Hawk grunts and walks over to examine the cave wall. He tries pushing it, twisting it, pulling it and even licking it. To all intents and purposes though, the cave wall seems to be nothing more than a wall of solid rock.
Vaelas steps up and raps his delicate Elven knuckles on the lump of rock, and then on the wall to the side of the rock.
"There is definitely a difference in sound. It could be that our prize is somehow buried inside the cave wall. I can see no sign of the rock being worked though by tool or magic. Dua, I assume you have searched the cave for signs of anything magical?"
Dua nods. Before Vaelas continues.
"Dirk, do you have a hammer on you?" The dwarf reaches into his backpack without looking, and produces a small miners hammer. "Good, would you care to demonstrate the Dwarven method of extracting valuables from solid rock?"
Dirk frowns. "Do some mining you mean? Aye, that I can have a go at." He steps up to the lump on the cave wall and taps it gently with his hammer. A very small chunk of rock drops to the floor.
"Er...I was just testing the strength of the rock." Dirk assures them. "You gotta like er, know how tough the rock is so that you know how hard to hit it to break it. Right?"
A few eyebrows are raised sceptically as Dirk swings the hammer back much further and swings it solidly into the cave wall. There is a loud 'Crack' and a second later, a large lump of rock hits the floor. The cave is suddenly illuminated with scattered rays of light, as the sun shines directly onto a large crystal that Dirks' hammer blow revealed.
Carefully chipping away a few more fragments of rock, the large crystal is soon pulled free from the wall and examined by the excited adventurers.
The crystal is about six inches long and five inches wide. On the underside of it there is a smooth concave circle carved into the crystal. Looking closely, incredibly fine, yellow veins of glowing light can be seen inside the crystal.
"As is probably expected, it's not magical." Remarks Dua. Dirk frowns and speaks up.
"It may not be magical, but it may well function in a similar manner, or follow similar design rules. I've got a bit of a knack when it comes to magic items, do you mind if I have a look at this and see if I can offer any insight into it?"
The group agree and Dirk sits down in the corner of the upper cave and spends ten minutes examining the crystal from various angles. Tapping it, shaking it, examining it very closely and even from afar. Eventually he rises from the floor and offers his thoughts.
"Well, Dua is definitely right that it's not magical. I'm confident from the design though that it is activated by putting it on your head. The concave part should make contact with the forehead and it should....do....whatever it is it does."
Janin, listening to the conversation from the lower cave, retrieves the note that they found at the bottom of the well. He re-reads it and points out part of it to his friends in the cave above him.
"It says here that it is a 'knowledge crystal', and I think that it probably contains details of this attack that the Kalashtar seem worried about. It also mentions that one of them may have been harmed in retrieving the crystal. We should be very careful in what we do with this crystal, even if we do know how to activate it."
Janin then stows away the Atavists note and retrieves from his possessions a small pouch that contains powdered silver. He sprinkles the silver powder carefully into a ceremonial circle on the cave floor, and he intones a prayer or protection to the Silver Flame while he works.
As he finishes his work, his friends all descend from the upper cave and end up being stood in the middle of the silver circle, without them even realising it. Janin points the circle out after a few moments and proceeds to explain how it should help protect them from possession and evil spirits.
Hawk scowls and leaps out of the circle when he sees it. The shifter seems to dislike the idea of having anything to do with Silver Flame miracles.
The discussion turns towards deciding who should be the one to try out the knowledge crystal. It is quickly pointed out that as the crystal appears to work from 'magic of the mind', and that as Vaelas is the only one with any kind of experience of this, he should be the one to try it.
Before Vaelas has chance to consider the option much, the others hand him the crystal, step out of the silver circle and look at him expectantly. Janin casts a localised version of his protection spell on the elf before stepping aside, "just as an extra precaution" he assures.
Vaelas whispers a quick prayer for his ancestors to guide him and protect him, before he closes his eyes and lifts the crystal towards his head.
***
You place the crystal to your forehead and feel its cold surface make contact with your skin. For a moment you wonder what you actually expected to happen. You are about to pull the crystal away when suddenly your head becomes awash with images streaming straight from the crystal directly into your mind.
A torrent of information screams past your eyes and through your mind too fast for you to process or understand. As the moments pass, you gradually grow accustomed to the sensation, and it slowly dawns on you that everything you see it being tucked away, somewhere, deep in the recesses of your memory.
Feeling a little more confident in what is occurring, you try and focus on the images and information as it passes through your senses. Within seconds you are left in no doubt that what you are seeing is no-less than the plans for a complete invasion of Khorvaire.
Sections of maps flash in front of your eyes, followed by tactical notes of how to best secure and defend each area. Details of troop deployment quantities are quickly followed by suggestions of tactical unit combinations.
The flow of obvious military information wanes and is gradually replaced by political facts and points. Suggestions of leverage points are listed along-side potential blackmail reasons and known vices. The flow of information begins to slow as grudges and historical enmities are implanted somewhere in your mind.
Strangely from all the information that flows through you, details seem to be missing. Location names are absent, people names, time scales, order of events, general context is completely absent. The information has obviously been carefully 'cleansed' before being stored in the crystal; it even avoids mentioning whom the invaders are or where they will come from. A powerful wealth of information, but of disappointingly little use in anger.
The final few facts that are forced upon you, all seem to revolve around potential trouble spots for the invasion. Locations that would be hard to take control of, resources that would be difficult to seize, people that might be smart enough to realise what was happening and maybe even take counter-measures.
You focus your mind on these last few facts, hoping to grasp hold of something that will be of use to you before it fades. You manage to focus for a split second and grasp hold of the letter 'K'. Holding on to that that letter is like holding onto a bush in a hurricane and hoping not to be blown-away; somehow though you manage it.
Suddenly the transference from the crystal stops. You take the crystal down from your forehead and look around. Your friends, allies all stand there looking expectantly at you.....
***
Feeling slightly shaken by the experience, Vaelas relates what he saw to his friends. They all fall silent for a few moments while they consider what their next step should be. Dua is the first to come to a conclusion and breaks the silence.
"Well it seems to me that our top priority is to get back to a major city and find some Kalashtar, possibly an Atavist too, and see if they can shed some light on things for us."
Avalon, who was keeping an eye out along the canyon, speaks up.
"No, I think that the top priority is to avoid the goblinoid army that is descending on us."
He receives a universal reply of "!" and people quickly but quietly move to peer westwards. They see eight hobgoblins riding Wargs coming towards them. Behind the Wargs are a number of foot soldiers, goblins and hobgoblins among them. There must be somewhere between twenty and thirty of them in total. Thankfully they haven't spotted the heroes yet.
"Fight, flee or hide?" Asks Avalon. The responses are nearly unanimous.
"Grrr.....hide in cave"
"Flight"
"Tactical withdrawal"
"Run away, run away!"
With only seconds to spare before they are discovered, the heroes turn eastwards and slink off, using uneven surface of the canyon wall as cover where possible.
Hawk moves around to the still-living bear and quickly cleans its' wounds. He than grabs one of each of the bears rear legs and heaving as hard as he can, he drags the bear along the canyon, away from the cave. It takes a while and is slow-going, but eventually the bear is nearly one hundred meters away from the cave.
Hawk sits for a moment to get his breath, and as he does so, the bear regains consciousness. The two circle each other, the bear trying to return to the safety of its cave and Hawk trying to keep it away from the cave to avoid having to kill it again.
Eventually the bear sniffs the air and seems to get the message. It backs off slowly, snarls and stumbles away in an easterly direction. Hawk watches it go and then returns to his friends at the cave. His conscience feeling slightly better than it did earlier.
Janin looks up. "Ah Hawk, good of you to join us." The Silver Flamer says, undertones of sarcasm are barely detectable in his voice. Before the two can start another argument, Vaelas steps in.
"We're just arranging search procedures to try and get us to the end of this map. I'm going to search along the top of the canyon cliff. Dua, Janin and Dirk are going to search the inside of the cave. Can I suggest that you help Avalon and D-Ablow search along the bottom of the canyon wall, to check that there aren't any other caves we have missed?"
Hawk nods and sets off to search with the Halfling and his Clawfoot dinosaur.
The day wears on, and the hours pass away as they all search. As the light of day begins to fade, none of the heroes have found anything new and they all return to the bears cave with a feeling of slight frustration.
As he is about to descend from the top of the canyon cliff, Vaelas' keen Elven eyes spots a lone figure moving, about a mile to the south of him. Squinting into the fading light, he can just make out enough detail to determine that it is a Hobgoblin riding a Warg. Vaelas judges it to be a concern but not an immediate threat.
When they are all back at the cave in the canyon floor, they sit round and discuss the facts that they know, in the hope that something new will occur to them.
"Dua, remind us what you learnt about Kalashtar from the library in Starilaskur." Asks Janin.
"Well, they are said to generally be honourable and just folk. They follow a religion called 'Il Yannah', which is also known as the Path of Light. Their ethos seems..."
Suddenly Hawk interrupts Dua's recap.
"Il Yannah rewards the faithful!" His companions exchange a few blank glances. "Il Yannah is the Path of Light! Of course! I bet that sun-rise is the key. As the sun rises tomorrow morning, I bet that the light through the three slits in the cave will reveal something to us. In fact, why wait, let's go look now!"
With that, he removes his armour and squirms his way up the spiral passage to the upper cave. He pulls some fishing wire from a pocket and uses it to try and predict where the suns rays will fall when the sun rises the next morning.
Surprisingly enough, the light from all three slits seem to converge on a single spot, about the size of a human child’s head, on the wall behind the slits in the cave wall.
"Aha!" He cries with success, a smug grin plastered all over his face. "Uneducated savage they call me. Who's the smart one now eh?" He looks round, but is disappointed to see that only Dua has followed him up into the cave to share in his moment of revelation.
Dua smiles silently and nods at him before producing some chalk and drawing a circle around the lump on the cave wall where the suns rays will converge. They both examine the lump of rock, but seeing nothing unusual about it; they conclude that the sun must be they key to revealing their theory to be true.
They head back down to the lower cave and inform the others of their findings. It is soon agree that they should bed down for the night and check the cave wall again at sunrise. They set watch and settle down for the night.
During his watch, Hawk fashions the bear skin to be wearable with the bears head and teeth resting on his own head. The shifter considers donning his new headgear and waking Janin to see if he can scare him though. He eventually decides it is below him though and resumes the task of cleaning the skin.
Many hours later, a few moments before the sun is due to rise, Dua, Avalon, Dirk, Hawk and Vaelas all climb up the narrow spiral passageway to the upper cave and eagerly await the first rays of dawn. Janin stays in the lower cave and keeps an eye out for D-ablow and their pack mule.
The seconds slowly pass and after what seems like an age, the sun finally rises and its rays burst through the cracks in the cave wall, and converge on the chalk-circled lump of rock on the cave wall.
"That's pretty. Is something meant to happen?" Asks Vaelas disappointedly.
Hawk grunts and walks over to examine the cave wall. He tries pushing it, twisting it, pulling it and even licking it. To all intents and purposes though, the cave wall seems to be nothing more than a wall of solid rock.
Vaelas steps up and raps his delicate Elven knuckles on the lump of rock, and then on the wall to the side of the rock.
"There is definitely a difference in sound. It could be that our prize is somehow buried inside the cave wall. I can see no sign of the rock being worked though by tool or magic. Dua, I assume you have searched the cave for signs of anything magical?"
Dua nods. Before Vaelas continues.
"Dirk, do you have a hammer on you?" The dwarf reaches into his backpack without looking, and produces a small miners hammer. "Good, would you care to demonstrate the Dwarven method of extracting valuables from solid rock?"
Dirk frowns. "Do some mining you mean? Aye, that I can have a go at." He steps up to the lump on the cave wall and taps it gently with his hammer. A very small chunk of rock drops to the floor.
"Er...I was just testing the strength of the rock." Dirk assures them. "You gotta like er, know how tough the rock is so that you know how hard to hit it to break it. Right?"
A few eyebrows are raised sceptically as Dirk swings the hammer back much further and swings it solidly into the cave wall. There is a loud 'Crack' and a second later, a large lump of rock hits the floor. The cave is suddenly illuminated with scattered rays of light, as the sun shines directly onto a large crystal that Dirks' hammer blow revealed.
Carefully chipping away a few more fragments of rock, the large crystal is soon pulled free from the wall and examined by the excited adventurers.
The crystal is about six inches long and five inches wide. On the underside of it there is a smooth concave circle carved into the crystal. Looking closely, incredibly fine, yellow veins of glowing light can be seen inside the crystal.
"As is probably expected, it's not magical." Remarks Dua. Dirk frowns and speaks up.
"It may not be magical, but it may well function in a similar manner, or follow similar design rules. I've got a bit of a knack when it comes to magic items, do you mind if I have a look at this and see if I can offer any insight into it?"
The group agree and Dirk sits down in the corner of the upper cave and spends ten minutes examining the crystal from various angles. Tapping it, shaking it, examining it very closely and even from afar. Eventually he rises from the floor and offers his thoughts.
"Well, Dua is definitely right that it's not magical. I'm confident from the design though that it is activated by putting it on your head. The concave part should make contact with the forehead and it should....do....whatever it is it does."
Janin, listening to the conversation from the lower cave, retrieves the note that they found at the bottom of the well. He re-reads it and points out part of it to his friends in the cave above him.
"It says here that it is a 'knowledge crystal', and I think that it probably contains details of this attack that the Kalashtar seem worried about. It also mentions that one of them may have been harmed in retrieving the crystal. We should be very careful in what we do with this crystal, even if we do know how to activate it."
Janin then stows away the Atavists note and retrieves from his possessions a small pouch that contains powdered silver. He sprinkles the silver powder carefully into a ceremonial circle on the cave floor, and he intones a prayer or protection to the Silver Flame while he works.
As he finishes his work, his friends all descend from the upper cave and end up being stood in the middle of the silver circle, without them even realising it. Janin points the circle out after a few moments and proceeds to explain how it should help protect them from possession and evil spirits.
Hawk scowls and leaps out of the circle when he sees it. The shifter seems to dislike the idea of having anything to do with Silver Flame miracles.
The discussion turns towards deciding who should be the one to try out the knowledge crystal. It is quickly pointed out that as the crystal appears to work from 'magic of the mind', and that as Vaelas is the only one with any kind of experience of this, he should be the one to try it.
Before Vaelas has chance to consider the option much, the others hand him the crystal, step out of the silver circle and look at him expectantly. Janin casts a localised version of his protection spell on the elf before stepping aside, "just as an extra precaution" he assures.
Vaelas whispers a quick prayer for his ancestors to guide him and protect him, before he closes his eyes and lifts the crystal towards his head.
***
You place the crystal to your forehead and feel its cold surface make contact with your skin. For a moment you wonder what you actually expected to happen. You are about to pull the crystal away when suddenly your head becomes awash with images streaming straight from the crystal directly into your mind.
A torrent of information screams past your eyes and through your mind too fast for you to process or understand. As the moments pass, you gradually grow accustomed to the sensation, and it slowly dawns on you that everything you see it being tucked away, somewhere, deep in the recesses of your memory.
Feeling a little more confident in what is occurring, you try and focus on the images and information as it passes through your senses. Within seconds you are left in no doubt that what you are seeing is no-less than the plans for a complete invasion of Khorvaire.
Sections of maps flash in front of your eyes, followed by tactical notes of how to best secure and defend each area. Details of troop deployment quantities are quickly followed by suggestions of tactical unit combinations.
The flow of obvious military information wanes and is gradually replaced by political facts and points. Suggestions of leverage points are listed along-side potential blackmail reasons and known vices. The flow of information begins to slow as grudges and historical enmities are implanted somewhere in your mind.
Strangely from all the information that flows through you, details seem to be missing. Location names are absent, people names, time scales, order of events, general context is completely absent. The information has obviously been carefully 'cleansed' before being stored in the crystal; it even avoids mentioning whom the invaders are or where they will come from. A powerful wealth of information, but of disappointingly little use in anger.
The final few facts that are forced upon you, all seem to revolve around potential trouble spots for the invasion. Locations that would be hard to take control of, resources that would be difficult to seize, people that might be smart enough to realise what was happening and maybe even take counter-measures.
You focus your mind on these last few facts, hoping to grasp hold of something that will be of use to you before it fades. You manage to focus for a split second and grasp hold of the letter 'K'. Holding on to that that letter is like holding onto a bush in a hurricane and hoping not to be blown-away; somehow though you manage it.
Suddenly the transference from the crystal stops. You take the crystal down from your forehead and look around. Your friends, allies all stand there looking expectantly at you.....
***
Feeling slightly shaken by the experience, Vaelas relates what he saw to his friends. They all fall silent for a few moments while they consider what their next step should be. Dua is the first to come to a conclusion and breaks the silence.
"Well it seems to me that our top priority is to get back to a major city and find some Kalashtar, possibly an Atavist too, and see if they can shed some light on things for us."
Avalon, who was keeping an eye out along the canyon, speaks up.
"No, I think that the top priority is to avoid the goblinoid army that is descending on us."
He receives a universal reply of "!" and people quickly but quietly move to peer westwards. They see eight hobgoblins riding Wargs coming towards them. Behind the Wargs are a number of foot soldiers, goblins and hobgoblins among them. There must be somewhere between twenty and thirty of them in total. Thankfully they haven't spotted the heroes yet.
"Fight, flee or hide?" Asks Avalon. The responses are nearly unanimous.
"Grrr.....hide in cave"
"Flight"
"Tactical withdrawal"
"Run away, run away!"
With only seconds to spare before they are discovered, the heroes turn eastwards and slink off, using uneven surface of the canyon wall as cover where possible.
posted by MazzaSizzle | 1:34 pm
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