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[Devastator]

(1d3 -> 2)

"You guys know anything about bane metal?"

"Oh, be careful with that.  A few robots are allergic to it.  Can't stay around it."

You can sell it, but it's mentioned that you'll probably get a better price elsewhere.

That didn't take long.  Huh.

Crossbows.. they have fairly normal crossbows available in +3, and you can get a +4 arbalest.  It'll take three turns to reload and do damage equivalent to a +5 weapon.  Taking a look at it, it's a plain item.. no special abilities, no elemental attachments, no bonuses like armour piercing, a simple "Advanced Aethrem Heavy Arbalest."

It's also big.  I mean, thanks to inventory that won't be a problem for you, but it's still big.  Real clunker of a weapon, metal frame, metal strings, foot winch.

It's also mentioned that they make crossbow-type siege weapons, as an alternative to the magic ammunition requiring ones.  There is an example of this, a massive thing with multiple pieces that bend, all adding power.

Unfortunately, Trence and his ability to weild items that aren't there should prevent anyone from firing it, if he managed to carry it on his back.  If it isn't THERE, you can't shoot it or reload it.  Plus, after a demonstration, it looks like it'd take four or even five turns to reload and ready for another shot.

[Egan_BW]

Can spells be cast while reloading weapons? IE is an arbalist "can only attack every fourth turn" or "need to blow three whole actions before it can attack"?

[Devastator]

Yeah, you can totally shoot them and not reload them.  They function more like Verity's guns.. you fire one shot, then take an action to reload the weapon, then you can fire another shot.  You should also be able to convert over your elemental arrows; they don't add bonus damage, it'll just be converting the attachments onto bolts rather than arrows.

Also, by this time you're all experienced adventurers.  Someone else can reload the crossbow.  Although, since none of you are experts or have crossbow-related skills, it'll still take turns to do it.  Can't have someone else reload it the same turn it's fired, can't have someone reload it and then Willis fires it at the same time.  Although, being skills, one could acquire training..

[Egan_BW]

Well, for now is it worth it to give Willis big non=magic burst damage at the cost of only getting to do one normal attack per fight? It seems pretty questionable for big baddie fights, which is mostly what we're concerned with. Unless we could use it to snipe some asshole wizard before he buffs up or something, but nuke spells probably work just as well for that?

[King Zultan]

What about a gun, do the robots have any of those?

[Devastator]

Probably, but you don't have any party members capable of using them.

[King Zultan]

Are guns any better than bows and crossbows in this world?

[Devastator]

(They can be, but they're mostly just another weapon type.  They're ranged weapons good for multipurpose use.. it's common to have several features built into the same gun, with different ammunition.)

(I think I'll just send you guys back up north, spending your money on investments.  It -should- be enough for your endgame gear back up at Valterre.)

That said..

Do you want to enter the Dragon Vault on the way back up?  Trence has two advanced dragon forms now.

<This will be an important event.>

[NJW2000]

We do.

Also objectives on the way back:

 - offering the nautical letters to the museum pirate
 - the temples of any gods that might help Alice deal with spellcasters. Particularly Dorren and Arngrim.
 - any shrines for elements we haven't visited yet. Or heck, any elemental shrines Alice thinks it might be worth going back to. We've exerienced Aethrem for the heck of it, eaten a lot of snow, frozen a bunch of things and climbed some bloody great mountains, so cold spirits should look kindly on us
 - anything especially unique in the world that's directly on the way
 - any places that were on the ancient map we found but are now unknown even to Uncle



Approaching our destiny like this might mean we have less time to sort things out. But I think we have what we really need, and the only super important objective is going back to Valterre.

Also, the siege weapon thing should remind us that Trence can use ultra large weapons as a dragon, so that's interesting. Ultra glaive?

[King Zultan]

We do.

Also objectives on the way back:

 - offering the nautical letters to the museum pirate
 - the temples of any gods that might help Alice deal with spellcasters. Particularly Dorren and Arngrim.
 - any shrines for elements we haven't visited yet. Or heck, any elemental shrines Alice thinks it might be worth going back to. We've exerienced Aethrem for the heck of it, eaten a lot of snow, frozen a bunch of things and climbed some bloody great mountains, so cold spirits should look kindly on us
 - anything especially unique in the world that's directly on the way
 - any places that were on the ancient map we found but are now unknown even to Uncle

+1

[Devastator]

-Elemental forms.

A fire shrine has provided guidance.  Specifically..

You are on tan-coloured sands, with the sun rising in the distance, behind a string of distant hills.  Behind you there is nothing, but long stretches of dune-covered trackless waterless desert.

Uncle was able to narrow this down with some effort.  It'll be somewhere in the Great Western Desert, the high, deeply landlocked tan sands far west of Mosral City on the western continent.

There is a wind shrine on the east side of Rustian which you had to skip.  As you once more plan on heading up with trade goods, it'll be a costly detour to hit that one up.  And it wouldn't actually give you the form, simply point you to where you need to go to actually acquire the forms.


-Nautical letters to the museum pirate.

Quite doable.  The village is along the coast, and you should be able to get this done with a boat and a day.  Added.


-Gods that hate spellcasters.

"The main problem is that magic is independent of the gods.  Dorren is not a clerical caster, and doesn't rely on the gods to do anything.

Arngrim is a clerical caster, but he's channeling the Concordat.  In a place of power, it may be possible to set something up to shut down an opposed clerical caster, but the problem with that is we're going to be fighting a caster channeling the Concordat on the Isle Perilous.  It's the reverse situation.

I shouldn't need to worry about being cut off.  A good conversation or two and a couple weeks to plan it out, and I shouldn't have any trouble channeling whatever abilities I get right in their faces, although there isn't going to be anything spontaneous, like the red balls of Klamati or that blue creature belonging to the Tulian City-Cult.  As for Klamati", at this Alice nudges Sessha, "It's kinda Klamati's hat to avoid getting shut down, even when someone wants to stop that from happening.  Sessha has nothing to worry about on that front."

..Something else comes to Alice's mind.

"Straight up god-on-god fights are rough, brutal, and usually quite weird.  The gods don't usually throw things in, all-or-nothing, on any one fight, no matter what's going on.  It does still happen, however..

..but it gets weird.  Sometimes they fight each other to nearly nothing, and retreat, having solved nothing and depleted their power for decades.  Sometimes one wins and the other mostly vanishes in a puff of nonsense, for any length of time.  Could be a few weeks.  Could be forever.  Sometimes you end up with new gods this way, from them stripping power fragments from each other, into new gods.  Sometimes it even gets into god sex, and well.. that's probably not a good idea here.

I'm not sold on going weird just to counter Dorren.  It might be useful, very useful, but I think Dorren and Spar are probably pretty damn good at handling weird.  Spar, because 'I kill you now', is an incredibly simple and straightforward plan when things go weird, and Dorren, because a mage with a spell list long enough to require its own library section probably has some stupid trick he can pull."

.."Still, if you want weirdness, there are some god options.  And they might be useful.."

-anything especially unique in the world that's directly on the way

Well, you just came this way, so you've seen the best places.  There's the Bite, which you visited.  There's Robot Antarctica, which you just left.  So nothing particularly stands out on the return journey as you having missed that.


-Ancient map

Uncle:  "The map dates to the time of the arrival of the Concordat, several thousand years ago, right around when Trence came along.  So it predates Trisamore."

Deep in the southern icy lands there's a larger island, bigger than the Isle Perilous, but not that much bigger.  Far Eastern Hemisphere, maybe icelocked, maybe not.  Uncle knows nothing about it, implying that it hasn't been visited post-Trisamore.  Trisamore likely knew about it, but there is no guarantee they actually did anything with it.

Unknown Coastal Swamp City in the Western Continent.  Uncle doesn't know about this one as well, but he has a number of theories.  Theories he's been unwilling to tell the rest of you to keep speculation down.  It's significantly out of your way, and you'll have to arrange a trip there at additional cost or separate from your cargo.  It is, however, not a voyage of exploration necessary for the previous choice.

Various places in the northeastern desert.  There are known ruins in there, but these are quite new to him.  No telling what you might find there.  Could be amazing treasures, could be houses buried in sand.  Very, very much out of your way at this time.

[King Zultan]

That icy island in the south sounds interesting.

[NJW2000]

That icy island in the south sounds interesting.

It does, though it's a long way away.

I also didn't realise we were that close to a fire dragon form... I think fire + ice + water would let us have another rank of breath damage, so that might be the form with the highest priority. Not for now though.

Head for the Dragon Vault!

[Devastator]

To the Dragon Vault!

Your remaining money goes to tools, luxury foods, and certain specialized raw materials.  It should make a significant profit when it arrives back at Valterre.

(Gained +5 upgrades of money.  Upon your return to Valterre, you will have 16 upgrades worth.)

This time the trip is less climatic.  The overland journey is mostly uneventful, with the sky above full of stars and clouds, as you head through a string of sunny, cloudless days.  The terrain is a bit dry in these hills, the moss more brownish, covering the sharp broken rocks.  Re-finding the location is also not easy, with it being such a generic location.  One hill is like another hill and there's dozens upon dozens of them.  But you have the thamulator and you have the maps..

..and this time, you are properly equipped for mining.  In a spate of optimism you smash the plug rock up and remove the chunks.  Hopefully there won't be yet another door behind the last door.  Or an underground slime dome of infinite mazes.

So smash the door rock, pull the chunks out of the way, go down the hallway.  There's the rotary door, so Alice is left outside.  And fortunately you have the "combination" to the lever written down.

As before, all of you move into the hallway before approaching the next, seal lock.  On your left is the wall-length metal tapestry depicting the images of the land, peace and war.  And dragons.

..there's probably enough room for a big dragon, but Blade Flying seems to be the most reasonable option.  Trence fills the hallways with sky blue wings, and places his head on the middle of the sigil, short arms staying on the ground.  The sigil fills with light, middle circle filling up, and light going in through two segments..

..instead of neutralizing itself, the two points of expanding lights form a complex interference pattern, allowing the light to fill the inner sigil.  If it was someone other than Trence there, and if his big old dragon head was not pressed against it, blocking out sight from everyone, they might make out that the inner sigil is in the shape of one of the logos on the weights.  Specifically, one of the logos on the three-symbol weight.  But with Trence's dragon body in the way, and Trence's eyes pointing towards the ground, neck bent over above him, this isn't seen.

In any case, after lighting up, the middle sigil sinks in a bit, and begins to turn clockwise.  After going about 180 degrees, the whole pattern shifts, is extinguished, and a crack opens, running the full height of the door.

To be continued

[Devastator]

Trence and Willis open the door together.  Uncle wanted to be first, but Uncle.  Alice covers the rear.  Sessha wanted to protect Trence, but in the end Willis is the one besides you as you pry open the door to the dragon vault.

Uncle has his eyes closed as he tries to settle himself.  He's normally pretty calm, but he's close to bouncing at this point.  Alice should be watching your backs.. but you're behind a rotating entryway in the middle of a hallway that's been closed off thousands of years.  It's safe.  Other than the two kids, everyone else is pressing forwards to see what there is to see.

Beyond the door is green and yellow light, filling the air like cobwebs, and obscuring the walls of a great chamber.  There are steps down from the door, opening onto a wide, flat space, free of obstructions and objects.  Beyond this square room are three chambers, and in each corner is a narrow shaft, proceeding upwards through the rock.

The great stone chamber isn't completely empty.  Along the walls are bits of stone, shaped like furniture pieces.  There's a long, flat piece of stone, and a number of stone disks, carved like tree logs and with narrow sockets.  Next to them are long and short stone rods, with carved ends to fit the sockets, identifying the pieces as a table top and stone stools..  although, they are far too heavy to be practical.  Similarly, the walls give the hint of engraved decorations, but not actually decorations.. engravings like picture frames and curiously lacking details.  These aren't decorations, but only the imitation of decorations.  There are also bits that could be glowstone fixtures, but instead of glowstone simply have round rocks in their place instead.  Some of them are removable, and others are all one piece, carved into the fixtures.. which themselves, are sometimes removable (but usually stuck), and sometimes clearly formed from part of the wall.  The latter are usually flat ones.

The next chamber entered is the one opposite the entrance.  Inside is a stone bed, part of the floor, and carved similarly to the table and chairs in the other room.. an imitation of the bed, but not an actual bed.  The air continues to remain full of green and yellow light.  This one has different decorations, and includes carved imitations of a doorway, and an extremely blank frame, at floor level.  The others had vague impressions of artwork on them, but this one is clear.

.."It's a mirror.  This is a carving imitating a mirror."

Uncle looks up, hastily writing stuff down while juggling his thamulator, needing at least three hands to keep up with the action.

.."Yeah, that would make sense", he says.  "And this is a bedchamber.. maybe that's a wardrobe then?  The door here?  I wonder if there's another room beyond, a sealed one.."  He then goes back to writing and sketching and fumbling.

The third chamber you check is the one to the right of the door.  This one is less clear as to what its pretended function is to be.  It has more steps down, being even lower than the main chamber, and the ceiling is also somewhat higher.  The glowstone "fittings" are larger and all recessed into the wall, which is near.  The other doorways have been into roughtly the middle of the chamber, but this one is near the end, is empty of the vast majority of the imitations of decorations, and has drawn chests and drawers onto the near wall.  It also has two shafts going down, in addition to the normal shafts going up.

"This is going to be more puzzle stuff, isn't it?"

Uncle says. "I'm not sure.  I don't think so.  I think it's just old and more broken down than it was.  It is responding to you, though.  Something about you moving through these rooms is doing something.  It's not dramatic, but you're clearly having an effect.  Lets keep looking for the key."

The final room is the one to the left of the main entrance, opposite the long room.  This one, past the short hallway, has actual steps down into a pit, and then up onto a raised dias, going back up but remaining clearly below the outer ring of the floor.  It also has the only actual built stuff in the room, being surrounded by short stone posts, linked by stone "ropes", running through them, separating the dias from the rest of the chamber.

As Trence steps down, Uncle goes "Wait!  Stop!.  It's doing something."  After some more waving around and a significant amount of icky feelings, he continues.  "Yeah, we're getting a reaction now.  We'd better keep everyone else clear of it, for now."

Sessha then speaks up.  "Can I buff him?  Armour one should help."

"If you'd like.  I don't think it's dangerous, it isn't that strong, but I'm pretty sure something will happen when Trence goes up those stairs."

At that, you do.  All is normal for a moment, and then there's a loud Clank!, and all goes dark once more.  But this time, it's different.  Not all is dark.  Below you, replacing the green and yellow is a thick tracery of bright green cracks coming from the ground, green like your scales, going out about a dozen feet into the blackness and making it clear you're on a great, flat surface.  And above.. well, that's not quite black as well, with dots of white and blue up above, much darker than the sky you are familiar with.  Not the thousands.. but some.

You take a few more steps.  There are other colours in your cracks, it isn't just green.. although it's is mostly green.  There's tiny beams of white and blue shooting up, as well as brown, silver, and purple.  But green there is and the green almost obscures the others.

"Welcome, Trence."

Ahead of you, a light turns on, illuminating a chair, facing away from you.  Below the chair is a tracery similar to your own, but in gold.