Zion: Light of the New Moon, Ch 4.2 Bannihar
Zion - Light of the New Moon Chapter 4.2
Bannihar A Little Problem
The Bannihar group has decided to explore the ruins of the dwarven city by sending in a small expeditionary force.
Alexander was not entirely comfortable with descending a Goddess-only-knew how deep of a hole. Elias had said that the hole went down some twenty feet until it opened up into a larger cavern... which meant that anyone descending by rope would be dangling out over nothingness. He wasn't afraid of heights, by any means, or the dark... or being underground... but adding all three of them together was any kind of phobist's nightmare... and would be enough to make any sane person think twice; the cat liked to think of himself as sane... most of the time.
The Geomancer was kneeling beside the hole, one hand gripping a walking stick while the other was merged with the ground. Alexander could see just well enough to tell that the stone sides of the earthen opening were extending out of the ground; Elias was creating steps down into the hole.
"I wonder what he'll do after we have no more sides of the hole to grow stairs from?" Roarg asked of nobody particular.
"We can give him the rocks out of your head?" Sebastian offered, and quickly sidestepped to avoid a kick to his rump.
"If everyone'll shut up, I have that issue addressed too." Elias noted gruffly. He stood, but the earth rose up to follow his hand. The ground beneath everyone's feet shook.
Lord Raes gazed down into the hole, "There are stairs rising up from the bottom!" he noted, astounded.
"Obviously." the cranky armadillo stated, "The floor of the cavern is stone too."
"I didn't know that Geomancers could control stone from so far away." Priestess Kayte noted with surprise and admiration.
"Well..." a lot of Elias' gruffness fizzled out, "It... just takes practice." the armadillo's ears turned red.
"The stairs will be stable, yes?" Lord Raes inquired, glancing down into the hole again.
"They will be, yes." Elias noted, quickly regaining his crotchety-old-armadillo tone, "When they're ready." he poked the dog with his cane to back him away from the hole.
"Are you sure going down there is wise?" Iskiy spoke up, standing a little ways off to the side, favoring a leg, "They are DWARVEN ruins, after all."
"Exactly the reason why we should be going down there." Elias noted, waving away Iskiy's concern, "There's so much we can learn."
"What if there are still living dwarves?" asked the antlered wolf, "The one near the highway couldn't have been dead for decades."
"All the more reason to explore." Lord Raes noted, "If there ARE dwarves still living here it is our Goddess-granted task to put an end to them."
"Genocide in the name of the Moon... fantastic." Elias mumbled, his voice far too quiet for anyone to hear... except Alexander. The cat simply smiled to himself at that. The armadillo heaved upward again and, as the ground shook, the sound of rock colliding with rock vibrated up from below. "Now the stairs are ready." he noted in a much louder voice.
Roarg walked up to the hole and peered down, "Well let's see what there is to find... we probably won't even find any dwarves." and, with that, he began the descent. Pausing, he glanced back over his shoulder, "You gonna fly down, gryphon?"
"Nooooooooo...." Sebastian puffed up, "I'll stay up here and keep watch... you KNOW me and caves don't get along."
"I know... I know..." Roarg chuckled, "I just wanted everyone to know that gryphons are more than just eagle and lion... they're part chicken too." and he quickly ducked a small stone Sebastian kicked his way. The badger disappeared out of view, descending down the steps, laughing.
"This is not a playground." Elias growled, and moved out of the way as an armored panther moved to the hole.
"These are just steps." the caravan guards noticed, standing at the lip after Roarg descended.
"JUST steps?" the armadillo questioned, the panther "Steps are what you use when you're looking to travel up or down any great distance... would you prefer a stone ladder?"
The guard shook his head, "What I mean is, there aren't any rails."
"I am not expecting anyone to lean over the edge." Elias noted in a monotone, though the level of irritation in his voice was obvious, "If you are worried about paw-holds perhaps you'd like to spend a few hours with some laborers installing them... the only problem with that, of course, is that it's a few less hours we have for exploring the citadel below." The guard took that as his cue, and descended without further comment.
"Here." Lord Raes noted, handing Iskiy a torch, "Gather everyone together at the bottom... I am going to settle the caravan and make certain guard patrols are set."
"Yes, sir." Iskiy noted, accepting the torch. He headed down after the panther.
Elias held a hand out to Kayte, who accepted it gingerly. He offered her a soft smile, and helped her step down, "Careful, Priestess." he noted, "Keep focused on the torch ahead of you, and I'll see you at the bottom after everyone else is down."
"Thank you, Elias." she smiled, accepting his help before she turned to regard the hole. By then, Alexander was in place to descend next.
"Don't push." Elias warned him, but the cat had already slid by. He pulled out a torch from his own supplies and struck his flint against the wall, sparking immediately. He kept the torch off to the side to avoid ruining his vision. The vertical shaft down through the earth didn't provide much room for movement. The spiraling stairs leading down meant that there was about ten feet of head clearance between what he was walking on and what he had been walking on above him... all in all, it had an enclosed feeling... but that all ended the moment he emerged into the open air of the cavern.
Alexander suddenly realized that he was standing on a thin band of stone stretching from the roof of the cavern to an enormous pillar that the Geomancer had called up out of the ground far below. The stone steps bridged a dozen feet from the end of the vertical shaft to the top of the enormous pillar... and then continued down along the outside of the large column of stone. Alexander stopped atop the pillar, breathless at what he saw.
Though the cavern looked pitch black from above, once the harsh sunlight was but a glimmer overhead, the cat was able to see that countless glowing crystals grew in enormous formations all around the gigantic cavern. Geological formations of numerous colors shed light throughout the cave system, providing comfortable lighting for hundreds of feet in all direction from where they emerged from the stone. The cat committed the view to memory, both for its aesthetic appeal, and so he could reference a bird's eye view of the cavern in the event he had to navigate it.
Looking downward from the pillar, Alexander had a moment of vertigo-- there were still hundreds of feet left to descend. He quickly found his way to the stairs leading toward the floor of the cavern, pausing only for a moment to exchange a smile with the Priestess as she was suddenly struck dumb by the same sight that had caught his eye. "Amazing..." he heard her whisper.
The cat continued down the steps, following those who went before him, and followed by those who were behind him. It was train of explorers, not that much different from the caravan he'd been in only minutes before, but it somehow felt more personal... less chaotic. Alexander kept one paw against the stone pillar to his left, maintaining a healthy distance from the sheer drop to his right but, even so, he still spent a lot of his time gazing over the edge at what lay below.
What Alexander could have only hoped to have described as a solid stone city stretched in every direction beneath him. As he made a complete three hundred and sixty rotation around the stone pillar on the steps he was able to confirm that the ruins stretched from wall to wall of the incredibly imposing vastness of the underground cavern. If he had to have guessed, the cat would have placed the chamber as easily half the size of Bannihar... and for the dwarves to have one time populated it... the fur on the back of his neck started to rise at the thought of so many dwarves... and it rose further when he realized that all of those dwarves would have to have been wiped out.
Several minutes later, Alexander finally set foot on the ancient street; to him, it looked as though the enormous pillar rose up out of what had once been a town square of sorts... and the term 'square' seemed fitting. All around him, the cat noticed that the buildings appeared to be merged with the stone of the cavern. They were all box shaped... angular, but smooth cut. Alexander's attention to craftsmanship was wood-based, but he was able to appreciate the similarities of the dwarven structures to the building style used in Bannihar.
"It looks like they grew the buildings right out of the stone." Roarg noted, kneeling down next to a wall, brushing his paw across the base of it where it met the ground.
"Dwarves were the first Geomancers." Elias noted, looking around the square, "It's no surprise that things look at least a little familiar."
"One of the few legacies they left that could be appreciated, despite them turning their back on the Moon Goddess." Lord Raes acknowledged, arriving at the bottom of the steps with another two guards, "They were truly fine craftsmen."
"The world is lesser for the loss of them." Roarg noted.
"They were heretics, and they sided with the elven people, Mr Stoneclan." Lord Raes noted in an iron tone, "Appreciation for their talents and what positive contributions they made is understandable."
"I merely meant--" the badger began.
"I know you meant no harm, sir," the dog clasped Roarg on the shoulder, "but do not extend your appreciation of their accomplishments to those who chose stand by and assist with the defilement of all our Great Mother sought to provide for us."
Roarg sighed. Elias moved over to him and rested a paw on his shoulder, talking quietly. The badger chuckled at that, and nodded. Together, the two of them moved off, talking amongst themselves like little cubs in a candy store as they pointed and gasped and remarked their way down the street.
Lord Raes glanced to Isky and the panther guard, "Corporal Iskiy... Corporal Uen... with me." and he moved after the stonemason and the Geomancer. He glanced back to the other guards that had followed, "Protect the priestess..." the dog paused when Alexander met his gaze, "...and the cat." and, with that, he disappeared down a sidestreet, heading after the others.
"It's all so beautiful..." Kayte murmured after everyone else had left. She moved over to stand beside Alexander, "I mean... it's not Bannihar on a cloudless day, and it's not the Hymn of the Silver Light... but it has a beauty all its own... don't you think?"
Alexander shrugged in response. He could admit to himself that the eerie light gave the entire cavern a foreboding feel that held beauty in its own way, and the architecture looked too perfect to be real, and yet, he saw that it was as real as the paw in front of his face. In the end, he simply shrugged again as a reply.
"I never dreamed that I would see the ruins of a great dwarven citadel..." Kayte continued, slowly moving away from him to inspect one of the buildings, "I had thought at one point about joining a delegate to visit Myre... I know they have the Karod'Hess ruins there, and I'd often thought about--"
"Hass." Alexander noted.
"Pardon?" the wolf asked, her ears up as she regarded him.
"Karod'Hass... not Karod'Hess." he offered.
The priestess smiled in response, "Oh." she giggled, "Right." and she smiled, "You know... people who spend more time listening than talking always seem to have the most information..." she laughed. Despite himself, Alexander couldn't help but smile at the priestess' interesting observation. He was almost tempted to make another comment, but the guards staring at him limited that inclination; either way, he didn't get the chance-- the panther guard, the one Lord Raes referred to as Corporal Uen came jogging toward them from down the street.
"Priestess... Lord Raes requests your presence." he glanced to the two guards, "Stay and protect the stairs." They both nodded.
Priestess Delier followed after the panther, and Alexander made the decision to go as well. He would have liked more time to see the many sights of the dwarven ruins, but the guard wasted no time in bringing them to their destination: a building that looked like most of the others... except for one specific detail: large metal doors. Alexander noticed them right away since all of the other buildings he had seen had no doors whatsoever.
"Mr. Hewen has reason to believe that something of importance may be within." Lord Raes noted as Priestess Delier approached, "I told him nothing would be opened without your blessing."
The wolf looked to Elias, who approached her, "What do you think we have to gain by going inside?" she asked.
"I'm not sure." he answered honestly, "But that symbol there..." he motioned to one of the numerous runes imprinted directly into the stone of the structure, "is the dwarven rune for Geomancy."
"It's some kind of college... a center of learning of some kind." Roarg noted, staring up at the building.
"It DOES look a lot like the university in Bannihar." Kayte confirmed.
"Or the university in Bannihar looks a lot like this building." the armadillo noted, in a low voice.
"Lord Raes is already ill at ease, Elias... please... just be careful what you say." the priestess asked quietly, resting a paw on his shoulder.
The Geomancer sighed, "Alright..." He glanced back to Lord Raes, raising his voice, "She's here now... so we can go in."
"Does entry into this building have your blessing, priestess?" the Champion asked formally.
"We will enter... but be careful." she nodded, "I know that the univeristy has many magical wards to protect against forced entry and I don't want to risk anything like that being here as well."
Elias nodded then looked back at Lord Raes, "Is that good enough?"
The dog nodded and his gaze returned to the building, "We're going to have a hard time getting through those doors if they're locked." then paused as a small, armadillo-sized doorway opened up in the stone wall beside the metal barriers.
"Coming?" Elias asked, walking inside.
Roarg quickly followed the Geomancer into the building, the rest of the explorers entering right after the badger. Elias stood in the center of the main room, slowly turning around and around as he looked at the sights. Considering the incredibly large chamber, it wasn't long before everyone was doing the same. The inside of the building was lit by the same crystals as the main cavern, though the crystals poked out of the stone at regular intervals, not unlike the moonstone sconces in some of the larger government buildings in Bannihar. Several staircases rose up to the second and third floor of the structure with catwalks running overhead between hallways.
"Oh my..." Kayte murmured, gazing around, moving forward slowly to gaze at a pillar rising up from the floor. The pillar was made of the same marble, but was capped with a translucent crystal box of some sort about waist height, and appeared to be displaying a finely crafted ring.
"Wow..." Iskiy noted, eyes going to the pure-white walls, dropping down to the marble floor, and gazing upward at the smooth, blue granite ceiling, from which natural crystal formations, reminiscent of chandaliers, hung freely.
"Amazing..." Elias whispered, eyes focused on one and only one object: a brass brazier, above which, a small cinder sat blazing away with light far brighter than such a small spark should have been capable of producing.
"Geomancer..." Lord Raes called, moving toward him, "What have you found?"
Elias looked back to him and pointed at the cinder, "An Elemental Anchorpoint." he responded.
"A what?" Roarg inquired, moving over to look at the speck of light, "It looks like an ember..." he cocked his head to the side, "A really bright ember... but still an ember."
"No... it's more than that..." the armadillo looked back to the floating cinder, "It is a mobile focus... a connection from this world to the Elemental Plane of Earth."
"Are you sure?" Kayte asked, moving up to join the two at the brazier.
"Yes." Elias confirmed, "I've seen one before... a long time ago." and he reached out, cupping his hands beneath it.
"Mr Hewen..." Lord Raes noted, moving toward him.
"These are so very rare..." the armadillo murmured.
"Mr Hewen!" the champion repeated, moving closer.
Alexander paused, focus going to the ground at his feet as it began to rumble. He looked up, and then to the side at the panther who was standing by him; the guard also seemed to notice.
"Lord Raes?" Corporal Uen inquired. The dog turned back to regard him, "Can you feel that?" he asked.
"Feel what?" Lord Raes responded.
It took Alexander a pawful of seconds to realize that not all of the ground was shaking... just the part beneath his and the guards' feet. Without another moment's thought, the cat sprang forward, going into a roll as the marble ground rose up in a powerful reverse landslide. He kept his back turned at the sound of a scream cut-short, and the cracking of bones and fleshy sounds of crushed meat.
"What is it?" demanded Lord Raes, his sword coming immediately to his paw.
"A golem... of sorts." Elias noted, taking a step away from it.
"It killed one of my men." the champion scowled.
"It's probably here to protect this building..." Elias noted.
"It's been here for a LOONNNNNNNG time." Roarg stated, "It might be cranky."
Alexander quickly skittered across the floor on his hands and knees, rising up only once he was behind the front line of the party. Standing, he drew his two blades and turned to face the enormous, humanoid shape that appeared to be made of pure marble; suddenly his blades didn't bring that much comfort.
"It's made of stone... stop it." Lord Raes directed Elias.
The Geomancer raised his hands, and then paused, confusion spreading across his face, "I can't... it..." his eyes suddenly went wide, "It's been Link-Bound."
"In common please." Roarg requested.
"It has a spirit of the elemental plane fused with it..." the Geomancer noted, eyes still wide, "By the Goddess... the dwarves DID make them..."
"Admiration later... survival now." Lord Raes suggested.
All conversation stopped when the golem raised its head, and a powerful voice boomed out within the chamber, seeming to resonate from every piece of stone in the place. There was one small problem, however.
"I think that was dwarven..." Kayte murmured, ears drooping.
Roarg lowered his hammer, looking up at the large construct. He cleared his throat, and began talking.
"You speak dwarven?!?" Iskiy asked, astounded. Roarg's response to him was drowned out by the golem speaking anew.
The badger looked back to the party and offered a shrug, "It says that we're trespassing."
"So what did you say back to it?" Elias asked.
"Couldn't you have warned us before killing Uen?" Roarg translated his earlier comment.
The golem's powerful voice vibrated throughout the chamber again and both of its arms elongated and broadened, becoming two large, stone axes.
"We have to leave now." Roarg explained.
Elias glanced between the golem and the little cinder floating above the brazier, "The Elemental Anchorpoint..."
"Whatever it is, it's not worth our lives, Elias." Lord Raes announced.
"That's debatable, sir." Elias noted, "That is an Anchorpoint to the Earth Plane..." he looked as if he were fighting to keep his arms from reaching out for it. A faint breath escaped him, and he breathed the name, "Siluria..."
Everyone was thrown to the floor as columns of stone rocketed up from the ground, knocking everyone off their feet and sending the brazier in front of Elias flying into the ceiling. The Golem practically roared.
"We need to leave... right now." Roarg noted, getting up.
"We can defeat it." Elias said, using the cane to get to his feet, "It can be destroyed."
"At what cost, Geomancer?" Lord Raes demanded, readying his shield.
"Roarg speaks its language... can't he just tell it that we mean no harm?" Iskiy suggested.
"I already tried that..." the badger noted, "Whether we mean harm or not, I don't think it wants us here."
"It.... flattened Uen." Iskiy noted, tail tucked as he gazed at the smear on the marble floor.
"We can't leave without that Elemental Anchorpoint!" the armadillo emphasized.
"I'm pretty sure it doesn't want us to have it." Roarg countered.
Alexander really didn't like where the discussion was going; he took the opportunity to casually slide behind a stone pillar to avoid any actions taken by the angry golem. Though any number of interesting trinkets caught his eye when he entered the room, the most attractive thing at that moment was the door leading out.
* * * * * *
It's that time again, folks: time to see what lays in store for the wonderful caravan from Bannihar, aka: Team Awesome.
Last post, the group discovered a hole leading deep into the ground, wherein rested the ruins of a great dwarven city. The party elected to send a small scouting team down to quickly take a look around.
Now, let's review the group's next set of choices:
1) Attack the Golem and take the forgotten treasures!
2) Claim the cinder that Elias desires so much and see if the Golem will let the group leave, otherwise beat the living stone out of it.
3) Try to negotiate a way that the group can prove that they have a right to be there.
4) That is one BIG golem-thing, and it is NASTY... just get the heck out.
At this point, a character may also spend 1 Willpower to choose to follow through wtih their elected vote regardless of what the party chooses. If the character can make a roll of Presence + Mettle (15) then they will follow through with whatever vote them make even if the rest of the party doesn't agree.
Also, Champions of Bannihar, since you may end up in combat based on how the votes (and rolls) go I will require a Stance from each of you. Stance is given on a rating of 0-5 where 5 is full offense, 4 is aggressive, 3 is neutral, 2 is conservative, and 1 is reserved, A rating of 0 indicates that the character will NOT be taking part in combat (not even in a support role). Please bear in mind that these ratings will increase your Offense the higher your Stance number and increase your Defense the lower your Stance number (or, in the case of 0, have the character try to avoid combat altogether)-- the opposite sub-trait decreases conversely (Defense goes down if the number is high; Offense goes down if the number is low).
I will also require a Utilization number for those characters that have an 11 or higher in combined Magic + Sub-Trait or Faith + Sub-Trait. Like Stance, Utilization ranges from 0-5. Utilization is a numerical equivalent of how free your contributed character is with their magic and/or prayers-- a charater with a higher Utilization is more inclined to use their abilities often and more powerfully while a character that elects a lower Utilization is less likely to depend on them (Utilization of 0 will result in the character foregoing any such abilities). Bear in mind that the higher the level of Utilization the more likely a character is to suffer from fatigue. Characters with higher Attribute + Sub-Skill totals are able less likely to be affected by fatigue unless they use a higher score of Utilization.
For an example of how to declare Stance and Utilization, please view the actions taken by the Author-Contributed characters below.
Contributing Readers, make sure you make your stance and utilization selections before midnight (pst) on Thursday, August 11th.