Eastspire
Hurts to walk, but Maude polymorphs Berdyn into a bear, and then Codex rides the bear. It makes things much easier.
It is still six hours of climbing to get to the ruins of Eastspire.
We rest, but it is still the 26th. We think.
We head through the sealed doors and into the ruins of Eastspire. It is abandoned and the air is stale. There are massive dragon claws everywhere, and clumps of stone that have melted and reformed.
Anton’s handiwork.
We see that the Svirfneblin embassy was a direct target of Anton. It looks like he grabbed it, and then breathed directly into it. It also looked like he attacked the Archives, but was pushed back. The archives walls were built out of obsidian.
Codex realizes that the Deep Gnomes could have put information into the stones, and Anton utterly destroying the building and melting the stone means he knew that. He was careful to do this. This means whatever Anton was hiding came from the Underdark.
Codex grabs a piece of stone from the nearby college, in hopes that the Deep Gnomes might talk to it and see what it might know. It is doubtful.
We enter a shrine. The interior of the shrine is pristine, dusty but intact. We find the long dead bodies of a dwarf priest and three other dwarven children.
Codex speaks to the dead. The dwarf Priestess is named Solva Armordottir. We ask why the shrine is untouched by the dragon, and are told Moradin knocked the claw aside. We ask where any Deep Gnome artifact or items would be, other than the embassy. We are told it would be either the museum or the deposit bank.
We will take the bones later.
We head to the Archive and find the stone door lock mechanism is melted, but the stone is obsidian and otherwise unharmed. Simon smashes it.
We collect the seal of EastSpire, Codex uses Locate object to do so.
We search the Archives. We find a hidden way down, a secret passage. This lower passage has tablets written in stone, all of them are about dragons.
The most recent tablets are about the era 40 years before the fall of the world. There are huge amounts of dragon sightings. The most recent, shortly before the city was destroyed, was a scouting report showing that three of the dragons were seen in the mountains, one of white, blue and green.
There is another sighting 250 years ago of all five dragons, blue, white, black, red and green, sighted at a location known as the citadel. All dragons seen are great dragons.
There’s another report from 250 years ago about a small army of over a hundred humans, travelling north on the plains, who held a holy symbol showing a dragon with 5 heads. Codex remembers when he was called a child of Tiamat by the Dwarven trade caravan leader.
Tiamat was the queen of evil chromatic dragons. Bahamut is the king of good metallic dragons. Tiamat appears as a beautiful woman or a 5 headed dragon, one head of each color.
There are cults that worship Tiamat for power. Maude remembers seeing the tattoo on the barmaid on delver’s rest. The amount of people under that banner is disturbing.
Ten years before the world froze Plainspire was destroyed by Anton, they had huge increase of dragon sightings 30 – 40 years beforehand.
We make several rubbings of the most recent tablets (last 50 years) and leave the archives. We then move our way towards the museum. We notice that the central support pillar has been completely destroyed, supporting the larger cavern of the entire city. It is very unstable. We notice that Anton tried to smash into the central feasthall, trying to get at something, or someone.
We see the entrance to the residence is destroyed, as is the military section. Anton was thorough in destroying this area. The temple to Hanseath (god of healing and spellcasting in battle) is undamaged, and the Hammer of Moradin elite warrior building is less damaged.
The museum is partially looted, we don’t find any deep gnome artifacts.
We head into the feasthall. We find a central area where we find a splash of silvery blood, which we realize is liquid mithril. And the area in the center is protected and timeless. It is said that Moradin’s blood is liquid mithril. Moradin must have protected this area with his own hand. That means Anton injured a Dwarven major deity – which is terrifying.
Bale touches the blood with the end of a branch. The blood dries and the area of protection leaves. The building is now a lot more fragile. We know that it will eventually fall to time.
We head to the other side of the city. There’s only one way into it, the rest is collapsed. The area that is available looks like it was stoneshaped through collapsed rock. Codex stoneshaped the last 10 feet that collapsed, allowing them into the other part of the city.
While searching the wreckage, we find a seemingly blank book inside of a lead coffer. Codex keeps the coffer closed to investigate later.
The other side of the city is damp and mildew-infused. Perhaps the remnant of the water system?
We reach the bank.
The vault was open, but Berdyn closed it accidentally. He has to reopen the vault.
Meanwhile, Sabine, Bale’s familiar, was taken by … something. When Bale resummons Sabine, and finds out that in the city’s amphitheatre is a rift to the shadowfell. And from it have come the sorrowsworn.
The Sorrowsworn are bad news. They are made up of different groups, known as: The angry, the hungry, the lonely, the lost and the wretched. They are in that order of most powerful to least. It is likely that the Lonely are the ones here, with harpoon arms that they use to draw them forth.
The amphitheatre is filled with water, and the rift is on a cracked stone at the stage. The sorrowsworn is in the water.
Identify the strange book, and it is an Anthropomorphacy Book. If the lifeblood of a sentient creature is spilled on the book, it will tell a prophecy to answer any question you want. But killing a sentient creature for the purpose of answering a prophecy is evil.
Rest in the bank for the night. We will fight the Sorrowsworn tomorrow.