After a long but quiet night, we woke in the pale grey of early dawn. The light is odd here in early morning--and it still seems strange that nobody has to carry the sun back each night. I took some time to meditate and perform my karma ritual around the corner. The winds respond so much more easily here… When I came back, some of the others were still doing dicipline-related things, and Gilad was trying to get us to go after the horses. I told him that that would take too long (it is really cold out here still, with this "snow" stuff around, even though there is less in the city than outside). Instead, we decided to scout one of the towers on the wall to get an idea of how the city is laid out, then figure out where we (and the orks) can stay until it gets warm again. H'zard had a map (I wonder where he got it… maybe from the scrolls we took?) so, together, our little band of adventurers walked towards one of the towers. The walls of the city are stone, but double-layered. Between the layers is a thick layer of dirt. In some of the walls, there are tunnels dug through the dirt. There are rough-hewn windling-size tunnels, dirt-lined animal-sized holes, and paved people-sized tunnels, though the only the windling and people-sized tunnels appear to have been there by design. The top of the tower has 3 weapon-mounts: 1 for indirect-fire wall-guarding, 2 for *giant* crossbows on universal mounts. There is a rusted stack of cannonballs here, and living crystal from the floor into the three weapons* *That's very strange. Perhaps it is a control system, maybe going back to the crystal palace we saw yesterday?* We climbed inside and up into the tower. Looking around, there appear to be tenements near the water, many of which haven't fallen over. *We could put ~1000 people in these now, and with a bit of work, we could make them livable for everyone.* A herd of horses (perhaps the one we chased before?) is near where we left the orks, and the orks appear to be trying to sit on them--they aren't doing great, but they're trying. *Perhaps they will be Cavalrymen like Joan?* K'shrik fears that they might make it harder for other people to get out of the caer, but I think that's not really something we can do anything about just now. Hopefully, there will be no need for us to do anything. There are a few other interesting buildings: places where you might have gotten new clothes and supplies, places where magicians and other craftsmen would work (called the "Street of Cunning Artificers") and a lot of buildings with strange symbols. (three balls, a rectangle with stripes, a quill-pen and scroll) that might indicate what business was transacted there. We got down from the tower (where it was getting quite cold) and head to a building that is in decent shape, which might house 50-100 people. We built a fire and divided our group in half--Donk, Joan, Steven and H'zard went to search for clothes, while the rest of us stayed to repair and clean out the building. A lot of these walls are obviously fused into solid rock with spells--that's a good idea… I repaired a wood door, and filled the window-holes in with earth, since we have nothing to keep the cold out that will let us still see out. Maybe I'll work on glass later. The other party went to the scroll building, which was a letter-writer place, and perhaps a lawyer. A clothing store (once fashionable) is full of hangars and moth symbols. "The Daggar Enporium" claiming to have "everything an adventurer needs" is full of rusty knives and such, armor and such (all in awful shape) "Iron trail rations", backpacks, and half a dozen blankets in halfway-decent condition (which they grab). They also find several actual smithys, which seem to have made a lot of horseshoes. It looks like this was evacuated, 100 years later looted, 300 years later looted, and then we showed up. At the same time, I repaired a wood door, and filled the window-holes in with earth. When the clothing people got back, Steven, Joan, H'zard, Zero Gilad and I set out to the caer to bring some more help. Mo, Larry, Curly, Shep, Harpo and Zeppo, (our ork guards), suggested we bring "The Battered Tusks", the Camrish Rugby team ("haven't lost in 400 years) and a few other big strong tough orks, and the others stay. Steven makes the blankets into "better than nothing" coats for the party, and we set off. Halfway there, we stop and warm up with firewood. As we get back to the cave entrance, Thwak appears. He seems to have not noticed that he was gone for a day We argued a bit more, but I continued to try to apologise. He claimed that he was boasting, "Drav'a" and claimed I owed hinm an honor debt, as he was not killing me on the spot. I went off and tried to get an Ork to tell me where to find Rag Vorn, but this Ork, like many of them, apparently can not read. I went to Zero, who refused to help me, and told me that I should not give up on gesturing *"It's the only way you'll learn"*. I finally managed to get Zero to make me an illusion of Rag Vorn, and the guy said "Oh, that's kinda neat. How'd you shrink him? He was over there a few minutes ago". I walked in the direction he pointed, and found RagVorn in conversation with a bunch of shaman--type lieutenants. A young group of men and a few women (about 1000) ran off, decided that following adepts wasn't a good idea, and took a small amount of rations and started trying to sit on the horses. Gilad told one of the lieutenants about our discoveries, and told him of our plan to move people to the city. They were short of water, and having trouble with getting the food from behind the flaming pit, so we decided that it would be a good idea to move soon, and put in our request for the useful-people to come with us. We collected the people we needed, and decided to set out at sunrise, and explore the stone ship until then. The stone ship had an elemental engine, crashed cannons, lots of people and not much cargo-space. < BAMF--meditate, sleep, watches, etc 100 people, clean and start repairing> < More BAMF 1000 people > < More BAMF 1000 people > < More BAMF all our stuff > While we moved the Orks out and helped them get settled, Zero, Steven and I started studying the blue scrolls, practicing spells, meditating, doing karma rituals, learning a few new spells, and working on making a better map of the city, etc. I asked K'shrik if he would help me teach a reading class to the orks, and asked RagVorn if he would help me **Blue Scrolls** --are all spells, of a wide variety, in the same handwriting and numbered. The numbers seem to jump around, and the spells are in different diciplines (some I've never heard of) **Red Scrolls** --generations of blackmail notes, some as old as 200 years old [Thwak, on Honor] After a week, we all got bored, so we went to look in the basement of the "NYPublicLibrary" building. It looks like the crystal was originally much more organized, but has been out of control for 400 years. The tubes are broken, but look like there is machinery to make the message-passing tubes work, but they appear to be broken. Donk lifts me up to a tube, so I can see the hole in the wall. There were birds nesting here in the past, and there are eggs that appear to have had living crystal grow through them. The walls are of living crystal, too. I walk over to the staircase to the basement, and we form into combat-formation (kinda) We get to the bottom of the stairs, and find more stairs (it appears to go down several levels) There are huge blocks of living crystal here, some which have papers that look like scrolls, and writing in languages that I've never recognised. There are tools for something -- I have no idea what for. The next level has... statues... in the living crystal that look like they were once statues. Steven says that it "Looks like an abandoned life-rock. It's dead. You chop people's heads off, and they die Humans, when they get happy, make more humans. Liferocks make obsidiman." He also said that it looks like it's grown oddly. The liferock isn't just the living crystal, but the living crystal is the liferock." I wish I knew how to talk to it. I should be able to do something like what I do when I talk to plants, but I'm not sure how, since whispering voices is a spell, not a language. We decide to go further down. On the third floor, I try shaping a piece of the crystal into a pyramid. It starts fractally expanding, and copying itself. The others run past me up the stairs, and Donk grabs me and takes me up, too. We run out of the basement, as I cast "masonry" again to smooth it out, so now there are fractals fighting: some trying to smooth, and some to turn into pyramids. I run towards the door as the crystal begins to take over the building. I spider-climb up the building, and try to think of a way to make this stop, as the building becomes a pyramid with sphynx-shaped things out front. I tried to move some rubble to surround the building, but I was too far from it. I ran to the other side of the roof I was on, and got down. I have no idea what to do with this... this is not good... um... maybe I can put some more rocks on it. I moved a bunch of boulders over next to it, and tried to make a barricade. The barricade doesn't seem to be turning into crystal, and the building is pretty-much a giant pyramid now. I try to reshape the crystal to not involve his arm, while Steven hit the wall with lightning-bolts, Thwak pulled on him and tried to hit the crystal with rock, and finally we get him out, though his arm is really hurt. Rag Vorn starts walking over with Joan(whom we sent here) and a collonade erupts from in front of the building. The door begins clearing, and a path of columns leads to it. The inside of the building appears to be opening. Zero tried to mindcontrol me, and Donk tried to kick me, but I dodged. I decided to climb back up on the building and figure out what to do next, sat down cross-legged, and watched. Thwak threw a stick into the building, and the building appeared to throw it back. I pulled out my notebook and started drawing a picture of the building, then wrote down the text of the "Speak to stone" spell. The motion has stopped now, or appears to have stopped, and Thwak appears to be testing things. The building accepts stone, throws sticks, grass, and an arrow back out. K'shrik and Thwak apppear to be approaching the building, but stop when H'zard calls out. "That doesn;t seem very heroic..." he says, "like jumping into a fire doesn't seem heroic. "Fire doesn't go anywhere." K'shrik countered. "This does." and he went in with Thwak. I can somewhat see them through the door, but I fear if I come down Donk will hurt me... Inside, it looks like (a 20th century bank, but built by Apple "iBank"). Out of the wall, a sign flips out. "Sorry for the inconvenience. (dwarvish and something else) "We apologise for the inconvenience. The overland trading company will shortly reopen for buisness as soon as we are able to provide sufficent staff. We're sure that Camrish has enjoyed trading with us before, and now that we are aware you're back, we will have staff sent here shortly" The dwarf-skeleton is unfolding and reassembling, and dim blue glows appear in his eyes, blink, checks itself over, and says, "Hi, welcome to the Overland Trading Company. I'm Dippy Dwarf. We're grateful for your continued patronage, but we must insist that you leave. Further tresspassing will be punished Very Harshly. This facility has already contacted corporate HQ. We'll have staff ariving Very Soon" One of it's arms sharpened itself into a blade, and it walked out of the pyramid wearing a suit and carrying a breifcase. It proceeded into city hall, and up to the Mayor's office, where it pressed the wall near the door. (It waits. H'zard opens the door from the other side of the mayor's office. "Hi, this is Dippy Dwarf, from the OTC, here to talk to you about resuming trading operations in your fair city" Brings out contracts: will activate defense grid, resume thalmaturgical power supply, etc for N pounds of silver payable on the first of each month. I run off to ask Steven "What is the Overland Trading Company"? He tells me they are a 4th age megacorp "Disney, Sears Roebuck, and Fleet rolled into one--like Sony" I ask him if their logo usually is a pyramid, since that was the thing I chose. "I've heard of pyramids. This one is sorta... odd. The sphynxs are certainly--intriguing" "What we should be offering you is the Caer re-emergence package" He hands H'zard a glossy pamphlet, offering a free subscription to the local intercity-defense force, survival tips, help signing on to intercity treaties, etc. He offers to leave to allow us to consider the offer, and explains that they noticed magical activity in the city. 20% of GDP after the first year. "I was a manager 500 years ago, and my body was deeded to the "Corperation" upon my death. Since then, my unsightly horns were removed, I was shortened by 5.5 ft, and I recieved chiseling and sculpting to further resemble the corporate mascot, "Dippy Dwarf" He hangs a banner outside that says "opening in 4 days" I go back to my roof, cast create fire, and make a little magic fire to keep myself warm. Donk, looking *really* angry, tries to climb up the building, hurt hand and all, and fails. He growled at me and said and "you" a lot. I throw a note at Donk, saying "I'm sorry". He rips it in half with his teeth, and storms off. I wait for a while until he is really really gone, let my fire go out, and then climb down and walk down towards the "civilization" All the other adepts are gone, so I sit down in a corner and begin to meditate. The party: goes to the temple. Steven Mandrake the Wizard explains contracts and money to H'zard, and they put the contract into the bowl of Erindus. "this is written in dwarvish characters, and even dwarvish words, but it seems to have been written by someone with the mind of a snake" -GM The paper uncurls, and the line you are suppposed to sign is on top. "I think I am supposed to sign this first.""--H'zard I don't think you have the authority to sign for all of us," --Steven Thwak keeps putting a sword in a bowl, taking it out, and putting it back again. He puts an arrow in, picks it back up, and leaves. The party explains to Thwak what happened before. "This is probably magic parchment. If I sign it, they'll know, won't they. It's putting down your name, and names have meanings" --H'zard The argue a bunch about whether they should do anything about the contract, whether we should sign it, whether it'd be a good idea or not, if it would help the city, and if it is a good idea "We're making deals with undead possible-horrors." -- Zero "So?"--H'zard "Are you damning the rest of us, or just yourself" --Zero "Himself" -Thwak "Then go for it!" -Zero "This town could be prosperous. It could *survive*" Is it better to be dead or alive? Think of the children" H'zard "Alive! That's why I don't want to negotiate with an undead company. What's worth more, prosperity or your soul? -Thwak They decide to go find Rag Vorn and ask him, since he seems to be the leader of the orks. They come back, and H'zard asks me to dance. The trolls are arguing about whose honor debt I'm in, and which honorable thing they should do or not do We went to talk to RagVorn. "Lye mentioned them to me. He was from a similar group, called Lemuria, the Brothers of the Hollow Earth. They would be able to help us--we'd give supplies we didn't need, and we traded things that we didn't need for things we did need. " Steven suggested that we wait and talk to all of them and figure out what they would offer to us. Donk came to me and said "You'll live... for now. You're bound by *his* honor now, but remember that he's older. He will die first." I asked him if there was something I could do to patch his honor, and he said there was nothing he could do, nothing I could do. "I will kill you" I moved into a corner and began to cry. RagVorn asked to take the contracts to go over and look at them with the other orkish elders.