The party climbed down from the sky ship to look around, and were confronted with a number of kobolds shaking spears and shields at them. Before they could attack, an old woman's voice from up by the cave entrance called out "don't hurt them, they're my friends. Won't you come in and talk?"
They turned to see a heavily robed old woman turn and walk into the cave. [Larasanteth, or Lara, for short, is an ancient blue dragon polymorphed in human form, as the players suspected and would find out soon enough]
Leaving Octavian and his companions to watch the ship, the party heads into the cave, trailed at some distance by a bunch of kobolds.
The cave itself has a wide and high entrance, sloping down into a very large high-ceilinged chamber. Torches light the way. There are obvious signs of many other passages branching off from this chamber, both at ground level and high up the walls and ceiling. The old lady sits near a small fire by a pond, with a large freshly killed deer nearby.
The party is skeptical of the old woman as they talk for a while. The old lady introduces herself as Lara, and asks if the party is here for her or the gate. They ask about the gate and about how long she has lived here. She smiles and says she has lived here since before the men of Onoria settled the lands, which would be at least 800 or 900 years.
At one point, she takes an interest in Arian, the elven sorcerer of blue draconic heritage, and asks him to come with her into another chamber and discuss something in private. She reveals her true nature and asks if Arian wants to enhance his draconic powers by drinking her blood. He agrees, she scratches her arm enough to draw blood, and he drinks of it. It burns horribly going down, but then fills him with warmth. She exultantly offers up a prayer to Tiamat, evil goddess of the chromatic (colored) dragons, in Arian's name. Hmm...
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| Lara's Cave |
They return to the others, and she reveals herself to the rest of the party. They talk further and Lara agrees to let them use her gate, but demands a favor of them in return - something has been done on the other side of the gate that seems to prevent only her from using it. They must figure out what it is, and fix it so that she can use the gate again. She claims that the bones of her mate are somewhere on the other side, that she is coming to the end of her life, and wants to fly in the warmth of the southern skies again.
They go to the gatestone chamber and find a pyramidal stone with four words inscribed on the four sides. She says to go to "Arafas" for the hot jungle land they seek. The other words are "Garash", "Meenar" and "Valtos". As they activate the gate and step through, she calls out to remind them that "Valtos" is the way home.
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| Elder Gatestone |
The arrival chamber of "Arafas" has an almost identical gatestone, but this one has what seems to be a solid gold cap inscribe with many runes and sigils. This cap, perched on top of the gatestone, is presumably what prevents Lara from coming through. The party cannot reactivate the gatestone (Duncan properly discerning that these kinds of portals often have a recharge period that could range from minutes to days or even weeks). They decide to leave the cap on the gate for the time being and go exploring.
Outside the gate chamber is a subterranean lake with some stepping stones and a partially broken bridge to the far side, where an exit is visible. Sunlight streams down from high overhead, where a 50 foot wide hole in the ceiling opens to the sky above.
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| Arafas Gate underground lake |
Partway across the lake, the party was attacked by a creature rising out of the water (of course), and was able to fight it off and continue onward (but not killing it).
They followed the passage out to the surface and found themselves high on a rugged hillside ledge looking out over the surrounding tropical forests. The entrance to the passage was very well hidden, and showed no sign of recent use.
Outside it was hot and humid. Looking out across the jungles to the east, the party could see a vast expanse of grasslands beyond, with a river winding through them (north/south). The river was miles away.
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| The Arafas Gate area |
Climbing down an almost-vanished old path, they came to a more well-used path along a stream. They found tracks leading west (away from the edge of the jungle and the river) and decided to follow them. After a short walk they came upon a scene of battle, and the dead bodies of a couple of human warriors. The tracks, along with some blood trails, continued west.
Approaching a clearing, they saw a human woman hiding behind some bushes watching the learning, where a white four-armed ape-like creature (a girallon) was stalking around a large sick or wounded reptile. She saw the party as they saw her, and she motioned for them to hide. The girallon looked very nasty.
Collectively, they opened fire on the girallon and went into battle. Two more of the creatures came out of the brush on the edges of the clearing, and the party was able to dispatch them without too much difficulty, although they took a decent bit of damage in the process.
After the combat, they realized that nobody could talk to the stranger, and nobody had magic prepared that would allow for two-way communication. Duncan was able to cast Comprehend Languages, which allowed him to understand what she said, and so they were able to learn some things from her.
Her name was Zarya Udak, and she was a guide and scout hired as part of an expedition looking to map and prospect the region. Her party was ambushed by a group of dark cloaked figures, a couple of them were killed, and the rest were taken captive and marched westward along the trail. Zaria had managed to hide in the underbrush and escape capture. She was tracking the ambushers when she came across the ape-creature blocking the trail.
They tracked the ambushers to an open valley nestled between the surrounding hills. The stream they had been following tumbled down a waterfall into a large pool. There were some old ruined building foundations near the pool, and in the sheer rock wall on the northwest end of the valley, next to the waterfall, was a carved stone doorway, with an open door.
A guard lay sound asleep in the sun next to the door.
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| The ambushers' cave |
They captured the guard, Zarya interrogated him, but they were unable to get much information out of him other than that "Azard the Great would protect him". Zarya got impatient and slit his throat.
Next...Into the cliff entrance...
GM Commentary - This was our third annual holiday season "3pm to whenever" game. We played for a few hours, had dinner, snacked a lot off and on, and played a good long session with a good mix of combat and other stuff. I'm very excited about the Pandora's box of future possibilities we have opened up. I have some specific thoughts on some of them. Less specific thoughts on others. And no idea about a couple of them. Which is fun.
Interacting with the World (what the characters learned...or were reminded of) - Lots of things here. They found a gate to a tropical land they believe to be Illurya. They interacted with an ancient blue (typically evil) dragon. Arian drank some dragon blood and had an ancient blue dragon offer up prayers to Tiamat in his name. They made a new friend in ?Illurya. They fought a couple of strange creatures the likes of which they had never seen before (the water creature and the girallons).
Present - All.
