Lake Cartography

Scribe Notes

Summary

Adventure: Lake Cartography
GM: Greg Graydon
Season: Winter 793 WK

Party

• Jhiselle de Barnard Fire Human Female - Anne H
• Kynn E&E Erelheine Female - Sue T
• Corel Air Elf Male Leader - Trevor G
• T.D.P. Roberts E&E Human Male - Phil J
• T'ana Starflower Mind Elf Female Mil Sci - Jacqui S
• Mortimer Wicca Hobbit Male - Martin D
• Basalic Earth Human Male Scribe - Keith S

Time on adventure

01/10/92 AP to 02/12/92 AP

Employer

Brian the Forester

Mission

To survey the area around Lake Clarke

Plane

Alusia

Places visited

Lake Clarke in the Barony of Clarkesville

Clarkesville Village

Elfenburg

Gracht

Borovia

Alfheim

Major NPCs encountered

Marcus & Andrew - Brian's assistants

Marion - Queen of the pixies

Sylvana - cat person

Myra - nixie

Queen Morolev - mere-elf

Baron Orville Clarke

Marion - Baroness

Peter, Paul, John, Wendy - the Baron's children

Steel - Earth elemental

Sapphire - Air elemental

Velanof - Captive water mage

Adventure Summary

30/09/92

Guild meeting time. Cartographer wanted an escort party to protect his team from 'minor irritants' as they surveyed Lake Clark in the Barony of Clarkesville.

Clarkesville is a tiny out of the way barony, located 1600 miles away in a NNE direction. The nearest well-known place is Mittelmarkhauptstadt which is 200 miles south of Clarkesville. According to Brian, the job should take about two months.

We were told that Clarkesville is a small barony with 3.5 thousand people in it. Principle imports and exports - none. A rather self sufficient place. No well known mages live there. A few tinkers go through occasionally and the merchant's mule train used to, until two years ago.

02/10/92

After preparing, left the Guild. After a while reached a field with a large spinny in it. Runeportal in the spinny. Arrived at shores of narrow lake, about 4 miles long. Met the other two cartographers. Reached area where first marker stone is.

03/10/92

Starflower and I went hunting and managed to get ourselves trapped in magical bubble. Saw visions of impending Armageddon somehow involving TDP. Darkness was used to get us out.

That night saw a glow under the surface of the lake.

04/10/92

Couldn't find clearing but suspect trees had been moved to fill it in. Moved off to a nearby tor which had a three sided pyramid on top. Told that two identical ones are on islands in the middle of the lake. Mortimer said that one face had the elven symbol for the Bel-Tan clan on it.

Found a tunnel running from the inside of the tor to the lake. Inside the tor was a room containing a big quartz, open casket containing something blue and amorphous - like a frozen pond. It was incredibly cold. He also spotted three wavy lines on the wall which was the elven sign for water.

After a divination we discovered that the 'ice' was a Water Elemental under the effects of a Rank 20 Air College Hibernation spell of indefinite duration - probably permanent. It had been there for nearly 48,000 years.

When we got back to the campsite, one of the tents had caught on fire. Caught some pixies. Was an accident. Ended up having a party with the pixies, including their queen, Marion. As the party progressed we were told that even 1,500 years ago there weren't many elves around here. The pyramids were remnants from when the Seven - a powerful group of human mages were around.

One, Velanef, a female water mage, had a disagreement with the others and the air mage, Valug, froze her water elemental. Mortimer added that an earlier Guild party had managed to wake up the Seven and had dealt to some of them. Marion also mentioned that there had been some disagreement between the elves and the humans and part of the land, near the lake, where the elves were living, had sunk. The elves retreated east to Alfheim.

12/10/92

Another glow was spotted in the lake. Kin investigated and found some caves 50' under the surface of the lake. Some of the party went to have a look and encountered aquatic elves. They were surprised to learn that the humans had forgotten them so decided to re-establish contact with the present Baron.

14/10/92

A catperson, Sylvana arrived at the campsite.

15/10/92

Started getting closer to the swamp.

20/10/92

Getting much closer. Brian told us they had a boathouse at the edge for a base. Occasionally they heard singing and someone would disappear. Also marker poles were being interfered with. Reached the boatshed by nightfall. Tried planting a marker pole surrounded by Hands of Earth. Some sort of sentience detected that was frightening Starflower.

21/10/92

Went back out into the swamp. Noticed that the Hands of Earth looked odd. Instead of Earth they looked more like compost. They had been affected by a non-college decay effect which wasn't a spell, ritual or talent. The age of the Hands were 240 years and the decay had started soon after the Hands were put up. Also a finger on one of the Hands was missing and there were some deep scratch marks in it, like claws.

Starflower had determined the source of the fear so we punted over to the island that she was looking at. The island had another elvish tor on. What we found was a cavity, 25ft down, similar to the one under the other tor. The quartz box contained some sort of dark substance. There was an astrological glyph or chart on one wall. Looked like a picture of the Alusian solar system with an extra planet outside the others. But for some reason the sun was in the middle.

Some of the dark stuff was retrieved. According to the aura it was Elemental Darkness. Had to destroy it with light as the sample attacked with instense cold. Mortimer went to get more information from the Guild. According to the Guild Astrologer, the conjunction had to do with the Time of Darkness which appeared every 20,000 years. Also he had found out more about the Seven. As well as Air, Water, Fire and Earth, there was one of Life, one of Death, and one of Time. Only the Water Mage had survived and she was kept under confinement in Alfheim.

That night heard singing. Starflower wandered off. Followed. Found a bunch of nixies and a kraken. Kraken killed, nixies captured. After a while some aquatic elves turned up. Nixies wanted by the Lord of the Lake for causing trouble. Turned them over.

22/10/92

Surveyors started work in the swamp. That evening large kraken arrived with mere-elves and Queen Morolev. She rewarded us.

After dinner, Morolev told us the story of Dorian. A long time ago he had amassed a large army and went west to deal with an unknown threat. He had arranged with the human outpost to oversee the lands, including the elven city until he returned for a full accounting. It was not a popular decision but it was upheld. After he left, that was the last that was seen of him and his army.

The elves that remained argued that the humans should not be allowed to continue administering the lands. The Seven interfered and one of them flooded the city. Whoever it was then disappeared without reversing the incantation so the remaining elves left.

Presumably Clarkesville was all that was left of the original human settlement of several thousand. Also a curse had been placed on the land consisting of some sort of dark malevolent presence.

25/10/92

Finished the survey today.

26/10/92

Headed across the lake towards Clarkesville.

27/10/92

Reached Clarkesville. Met the Baron and his family. That night some elves turned up wanting to take TDP for questioning about some visions.

28/10/92

Went to cave to deliver survey resulted. Placed results on stone cube and figures transmitted to Alfheim. Saw an elemental transfer the taxes from one pile of money to another. Mortimer sent further messages. We were told to report to the Western Marshes Border area for debriefing.

Escorted by two elementals, Sapphire (Air) and Steel (Earth). Portalled to Seagate, then to Elvenburg, and Gracht. Headed to Alfheim border, fifty miles away at Borovia. Travelled into bordering mountain range. Reached western edge of Alfheim. Told by regal looking elf that we had stumbled into a sensitive area of elven security. Had to stay in Alfheim until cache moved.

29/10/92

Stayed in isolated chateau surrounded by forest. TDP joined us later.

29/11/92

Finally the cache had been moved so we could leave. The request to meet with the captured Water Mage had been approved. Went through elven security designed so we didn't know where we were. Ended up in limestone cavern. Found Water Mage in large gilded cage in very hot cavern surrounded by lava. Would only help us drain the Clarkesville swamp if we released her elemental.

No dice.

Finally get taken back to where we started. Escorted through mountains and out of Alfheim.

01/12/92

Arrived back at the Guild. Got a Namer to banish the Dark Elemental.

02/12/92

Back at the Guild. Mission over