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Session #24

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Thu August 3, 1178 (17:00 - 23:00)

Out on the waters of Northmoon Bay, a bit over a kilometer from the shore, the party found a sprawling city built across stone platforms in the water - Moon's Rest. With Astrid casting Water Breathing, they swam (or in Fang's case, walked across the sea floor) towards the city and climbed upwards onto the platforms. Immediately, they found the city in a state of complete ruin. Most of the buildings had little remaining of them except stone foundations, though those with more hardy stone construction were in a better state. Oddly, there was no wood present anywhere, except in locked buildings or deep in cellars. Fang looked around several buildings, and investigated how old the ruins might be - deciding they were built at least 3 or 4 thousand years ago, but were last lived in over 1.5 thousand years ago. In the meantime, Carnage found a small medallion-like object with an emblem of a shield and strange writing on it, and a small keyhole in the side of the medallion. She remembered a similar symbol in one of the books she read in Zerendar's library - it must be some kind of city guard. As the sun started setting, several lighthouses at the edges of the city, and one in the middle, lit up with rainbow lights. Astrid and Carnage went to their nearest one, and stole the light-generating orb from the top, which they determined was powered by illusion magic. Teemo chose to venture farther, going to the central lighthouse instead. Travelling through the city's tangle of canals and waterways, he reached the lighthouse and the rest of the party quickly caught up (Korg and Fang taking a quick visit to a tavern with a surviving, sealed bottle of alcohol). The lighthouse stood in the middle of a large basin in the middle of the city, where the 4 largest canals intersected. The party swam over to it, but found that all the doorways into the lighthouse went straight into a wall. So instead, they chose to climb up the entire lighthouse, with Astrid turning into a giant spider to do so. The rest climbed up a rope that Fang brought up to the top, where they found another, larger glowing light orb. Taking this one as well, they took a pause to have lunch and for Astrid to finally map out the city. From the lofty view they had, the party found a few points of interest - an abandoned shipyard, a giant temple, a massive empty basin in the city, and a few other large buildings. They then found a trapdoor in the top of the tower, but it also seemed to just lead to another stone wall. However, Fang found this unusual, and tried to stick his hand and then his head into it - discovering that it was nothing more than an illusion. Climbing down what turned out to be a ladder extending through the entire tower, the party found: a war room, bureaucratic offices, various official rooms, mess halls, and a few more rooms. In the war room, they found a small key engraved with the emblem of the city guard, which unlocked the medallion they found earlier, and another they found in the room. These turned out to be voice recordings powered by illusion magic, recorded by the city guard as they were running from "endless flames" and eventually planning a full surrender of the city to "the invaders". Downstairs in the bureaucratic offices, Fang found a document laying on an important desk, written in both the language of Northmoon and in an older version of Gnomish. The document was outlining a treaty for the construction of "Nord'Ell Station", an oil rig in the northwest of the Northmoon bay, by the Kingdom of Zec'Amos (which eventually became the Kingdom of Gnoma). In exchange for this construction, Northmoon could collect some of the gold earnings from the oil extracted. Having made an accurate map of the city, Astrid, Teemo and Korg ventured to a large building they found earlier, which turned out to be a large bank. They quickly pulled off a very simple heist, which was made much easier by the complete lack of any living guards to respond to the alarms they set off. They collected over 500 gold pieces from this, one of the biggest windfalls they'd had during their adventure. Leaving the bank, they decided to start travelling towards either the large temple or the shipyards as their next destination. But on the way, they found one more medallion, where they heard a simple message: "The water's on fire!". Not long afterwards, they found the first actual ship they'd seen in the city -- an ironclad warship crashed into the stone platforms of the city, engraved with the coat of arms of the Kingdom of Zec'Amos. Now, they head onwards to continue exploring the city.