Post-Mokmurian Questions

[Mike]

But yeah... a couple weeks downtime for research, relaxing, and retraining would be super-chill.

[Bluedevyl]

Agreed.

If I remember correctly, Pat said that we had some time at the end last night, because giants dont come down here, as a rule. I think we've got a little time to find Conna, make some deals with her, rest up, and then start exploring the remainder of Jorgenfist after we're re-spelled and healed.

Mike is correct in the reading of teleport. Anna can bring up to three other people at a time on a single cast, going up to 4 people at 12th level. As she has access to 4 castings a day, she could bring 3 people to Fort Rannick, come back to Jorgenfist, bring 3 people to Sandpoint, and then return. That would mean that one person would have to stay behind with her, but that shouldnt be too difficult, considering.

Anna is very much in favor of having Conna detail a couple of giants to drop the cauldron into the nearest volcano. That should destroy it, and it would probably be something she would be happy to do, a symbolic destruction of the bad juju that her son was in to.

[Mike]

[Mike]

[Mike]

In fact, if it's a stronger position for Conna to present her son's head to the assembled tribes without us around, I'm happy to let her take credit and make up whatever story works best for her people. As long as we are convinced that the threat really has been neutralized.

Somewhere in here, I hope to find whatever research and ancient magicks that Mokmurian got himself into that led to this. It would be nice to A) get a peek into the process that we're dealing with here so that we know how to prepare, and B) destroy it and/or keep it out of the hands of any who would follow in his footsteps.

[Zen]

[Tahlvin]

[Bluedevyl]

To the best of my knowledge, you guys found the amulets before Sam and Anna joined the Company, so neither of us have had an opportunity to identify them, or even examine them in any great detail.

Maybe we can do some research during this next session or RP it on the boards to see what, if any additional information we can glean about them. If nothing else, wearing them out in the open may signal our allegiance to this Karzoug fellow, which is likely not something that we want to proclaim, except in certain situations where social engineering could be to our benefit.

[Tahlvin]

I just remembered something this morning which may impact the route we take to return to Sandpoint/Magnimar/Fort Rannick/Hook Mountain/etc.

Didn't we leave our horses and a wagon somewhere along the way, like in a town a little ways on the other side of the Storval Stairs? I realize we're rich enough to buy new horses, but I believe Dwyn had a rather emotional attachment to her horse. So we might now be looking at just teleporting everyone back to some particular place; we may have a week-or-so horse ride on our agenda at some point.

[Mike]

Dammit. She does love that horse.

I'm just working on efficiency here. If I take a week's ride across the countryside, I get two days of work done on my wings. If Dothan and maybe one or two others get 'ported home early, I get seven days of work done while we wait for you.

Plus we'll find other things to do while we're there.

[Phoebe]

Now that Mokmurian is dead, Dwyn's sense of urgency has abated some. He's not launching any new invasions of Sandpoint at the moment, eh? We may find other scary creatures and minions of his down here, but we're also physically and mentally exhausted by what we've been through today. This place might be a safer to rest in than other spots we'd have to fight our way back to.

The main time-sensitive concern is finding and communicating with M's mother. Is there any way we can do that magically without having to either split the party or keep pushing on without rest? Dwyn's sense of that conversation was that if M. was taken out, his mother might be able to regain control of her Stone Giant people and disperse the other gathered armies.

Next, are other terrible evil creatures still down here? M's minions? Because if they're all working for the same goals that M was - trying to hit that X on the map, for instance - then Sandpoint won't be safe until we take those out too. This will require rest.

Dwyn is pretty sure now that anything to do with the sihedron is evil and needs to be destroyed. She's not one to sow dissent among her friends, so she's not going to argue about it, but she will make her view about it plain. She can be diverted by persuasive people like Dothan, but only temporarily; after that she'll be stubbornly back to saying that anything connected to ancient Thassalonia is evil and a menace.

[Phoebe]

[Phoebe]

[Tahlvin]

[Phoebe]

Not sure how that would work - depends what spells people have left before they must sleep. Maybe it means sending her a message to meet us; maybe it means outfitting a few people with enough protections or means of quick escape to find her and then get back to the rest of the group.

The other thing is, if something bad happens while Dwyn is sleeping, she either won't have armor for 4 minutes (and someone has to help her don it during that whole time, or hastily don it in 2 minutes for a partial effect), or she'll be fatigued the next day sleeping in armor. I'd almost chance it without the armor if someone was prepared to give her a significant buff to AC, but then, we'd need to plan for that in our "who's standing watch" arrangements.

[Mike]

I have no problem informing her by text. She knows exactly what she sent us to do. A Sending that says, "We are victorious. Meet us at..." works for me.

[Zen]

Kay is actually in favor of taking the longer route home. She can do some work retraining escape artist skill on that trip... (sounds like some fun evenings!)

[Eliahad]

[Tahlvin]

I say we leave the body where it is, head back to the previous level, and meet with Conna face-to-face. Tell her Mokmurian is dead and ask her what she would like us to do with the body. Then we ask her about other threats and how she wants to proceed, keeping in mind that we need about 10 hours of uninterrupted rest time. After that rest time, we can bring the body back to Conna, if she wants it, and go from there.

[bralbovsky]

So how about this for a specific plan: We arrange M's body in a restful way. Hal will stand guard. Meanwhile the rest of the party rests in the no corner room. If Conna has a way to monitor our progress, she will show up. If not, the next day we can decide whether we take her the body or open up the brass door. I'm sort of inclined to open the door, but not tied to it.

I would absolutely face her with the body, out of respect.

She will have a good idea about which populations she can trust/lead, and I would suggest we arrange with her some eradication of the sihedron marks. This serves a couple purposes. We get to contact the giants in a positive way, and they get to see who prevailed over M. It's not a loyalty oath moment, but if we handle it right we can make friends instead of enemies.

That may take a while. Here's the risk: Karzoug confederates may choose to flee and regroup elsewhere. That's no fun, but I'll bet there is enough ancient peril here to keep us happy for a bit. We can tame the cave bears if you want. (My preferred option)

This brings us to the step where we mop up what's left of this "dungeon." We'll have remaining any perils that M inherited, maybe he coerced them, and now he's gone we can turn them to our service instead. Maybe they're mindless, like the wyverns, and we can just eliminate them.

I'd make this the base of our operation for a while. We can occupy safe sections, and teleport back and forth to redeem treasure and trade or visit.