Post by Andy D on Sept 8, 2023 22:14:24 GMT
Avoiding Temple Duty - Always a Better Use of My Time!
I was late!
I scoured the jobs board for anything immediate. Normally, you see, I have time to find an adventuring job that coincides with the monthly Dwarven Quarter’s Multi-Faith Gathering. As long as I can find a good adventure on the same day, I can announce to the higher-ups that, “I’m so awfully sorry, but I can’t attend to the people *ahem* again.” The problem is, ever since Archie came back from Vorsthold, (lucky bugger!) and brought me back a souvenir, I’ve been trying to craft a perfect gift in return. Not a gift for Archie - no, no. The souvenir from Vorsthold was given by General Manteen, and it was her own dagger.
So I’ve been trying to forge the perfect dagger as a return gift for General Manteen, when I eventually get to visit Vorsthold myself. Only, my recent attempts at making a dagger fit for the General of Vorsthold have not impressed me. Don’t get me wrong, the daggers I’ve made aren’t shit. How could they be? I couldn’t make something shit even if I tried. But, the daggers I’ve been making just aren’t good enough. As a cleric of the forge, and a member of the Clan Crafters, the dagger I make needs to be the finest craftsmanship outside of Vorsthold. Sadly, I’ve been failing at my task. Worse, it’s distracted me from outmanoeuvring my so-called duty to the temple!
When I saw the stone plaque advertising need of scouting some festival in a primordial forge, I was fucking chuffed! An adventure in a forge? This screams me! And there was promise of reward; pricey forge materials! I thought to myself I might be able to get myself some quality steel, and then the dagger I make for General Manteen will be perfect!
I have to deal with people telling me that I should spend more time at the temple. But why would my god, Moradin, put such an attractive adventure in front of me, if not for me to go on it!
No time or place mentioned on the plaque though. Just a fascinating glowing rune, which I touched…
Avernus - First Level of Hell!
So it was this incubus dandy - bit like Guslaff (the others felt) - who had summoned us all to his home in Hell. Debozs was the man’s name. He was the one who made the stone plaque adventuring notice. Debozs didn’t have much of a plan for his festival, but he somehow (he claims at least) sold six hundred tickets already to denizens of Dis (second level of Hell) mainly. So fairplay to him. He’s also clearly quite powerful - magically. He planeshifted us here and then planeshifted us where we needed to go - Archie can’t do that spell, so Debozs must be powerful. However, Debozs seems a bit shit at logistics. Complete amateur at organisation events, it seemed. He asked us for suggestions - what do I know about putting on festivals?
Debozs said the location for his future ‘Festival of Fyre’ was on the Elemental Plane of Fire, where there was a Primordial Forge. But, the place seemed to be occupied by mephits.
I was joined by a couple of adventurers I’d met before, and a new fella. There was Calla, the bookworm drow who made herself some pretty decent looking plate armour. There was Thurghor the mangiest looking bugbear I ever did see. Thurghor was still carrying a fishing rod as a primary weapon. I sighed. But, to give the lad credit; he’s somehow found a way to make a fishing rod an effective weapon. Then there was Robin, another bookish type, halfling, but also carried a rapier.
My companions all cared about whether we would be displacing the mephits from their home, if we cleared them out. So, we agreed to first check whether we were kicking out scum from where they didn’t belong, or if we would in fact be acting as some git’s nasty muscle. My money was on the mephits being little shits. I think it was Calla who reminded us that mephits explode when they die - bit dramatic isn’t it? Just die! Exploding upon death makes you a sore loser, I say. So; kill mephits, or help mephits? Either way I just hoped I would be able to find some good metal for my dagger.
The Primordial Forge in the Elemental Plane of Fire
Fucking hell it was hot!
Debozs planeshifted us over to the Plane of Fire. I was roasting alive in my adamantine splint! Moradin’s balls, Debozs’s home on the first level of Hell did not prepare me for the sweltering, dry heat! I don’t know if that was because Debozs’ home was cooler than the outside, or maybe the Plane of Fire is just hotter. I don’t know how Hell works, but if the fourth level of Hell, Phlegethos, is four times hotter than the first level, I don’t know how Kavel, that great big mountain boy, spent any time in there. Then again, he barely wears any clothes, so that had to have helped.
I could barely breathe and was exhausted as we walked towards an archway of two curved, elven-looking hammers. It was so hot, I wanted to die. Despite the intolerable, inhumane heat, I still managed to squeeze out a joke, “gods! It’s like a bloody forge in here!” (I’m the best, even when I’m slowly dying of heat exhaustion! Ha!)
The Story of Carric and Nevarra
It was all very elvish in this place. Wasn’t expecting that. I suppose since elves are very long-lived they’ve been everywhere.
There were two paths for us to take. Above us, I could read the script for ‘Closing Hours’ on the left, and ‘Rest of Eternity’ on the right. There was Gond’s cog symbol above ‘Closing Hours.’ Gond as the master craftsman and god of the forge. So I was in favour of going down that path - Calla too actually.
We came across a rectangular pyramid-like monument. A very well crafted obelisk, which had a story carved into each of its four sides, in the same four different languages that was above the archway; dwarven, elven, and I think infernal and some primordial dialect. Both Robin and Calla being such bookish smarty pants could understand all the languages between them but I got to the obelisk first and started translating the dwarven for everyone. Oh, and the side with the dwarven script didn’t have a splattering of magma over it, just some puddles of cooling rock at the bottom, so the dwarven side was the only legible side, not needing cleaning.
The story was about a couple of elves, Carric and Nevarra. It spoke mainly of Carric. This ancient elf was a master craftsperson and battle mad. He believed that if you crafted weapons of death, you should know how they worked, which means experiencing battle yourself. I’d agree with that.
Carric, the story went on, took on an apprentice, Nevarra - she became really good at crafting and fighting too. They fell in love - go figure. When not in a battle, they probably spent all day every day in the forge, and they were probably alone. So who else are you likely to fall in love with, heh?
So, they carried on forging, fighting, (fucking, haha!) for over a hundred years, and then got upset when they realised that even as a long-lived race, the fun would come to an end at some point. So, like all desperate creatures, they tried to find a way to prevent death, and live forever doing what they enjoyed.
Carric and Nevarra met an aspect of Gond, the master craftsman and god of the forge (bloody great god - second to Moradin of course, but bloody great). Gond was impressed with their work and said he would forge their souls into a pair of hammers, that way they could carry on at the anvil and at battle forever. So, the lovers said to their army, “we’re fucking off now,” and came to a temple dedicated to Gond, where he began transferring their souls into a couple of hammers.
Now, Corellon, the top elven god, felt this was some kind of treachery. Corellon struck a blow to the hammers during the final moment of transference and cursed Carric. Nevarra transferred perfectly, but Carric found that every time he finished a truly exquisite piece of work, a little bit of him slipped away - all because Corellon got the hump! What a c**t! Should have made the pair a better offer than Gond!
Carric managed to possess a dwarf at some point and curse the gods. Corellon admitted to their crime - easy to do, I suppose, if you know there will be no consequences for you. Corellon then mentioned a bigger kicker to the curse - anytime Carric had corporeal form, like when possessing someone, he would eat into his final day’s worth of being alive. So Carric had a slow clock ticking down anytime he made something amazing, and a faster ticking clock if he possessed someone, for battle, for example. So, doing both the things he loved would fuck him over - nice one Corellon, you utter shit!
By the Way - The Splatters of Magma
So, being the dwarf, professional mason and all around expert in; stone, metals and gems, it fell on me to have a look at all the cooling magma that was all over the place and didn’t look like it belonged.
When I realised that the blotches of magmas were all about halfling-sized when clumped together, it hit me that these were formerly magma mephits! Someone had swotted mephits all over the obelisk and walls of this room. It was some big thing and also someone my size. We followed the footprints down a pathway to a lower level.
The Primordial Forge!
Our journey down to the biggest and most amazing forge I’ve ever seen, was accompanied by the sound of tiny squeals - these were the noises mephits were making before they exploded upon death and splattered all over the place.
When we finally reached the forge, we could see a pretty thicc dwarf finishing the forging of a dagger with a couple of exquisite looking elven hammers. The anvil he was working on was on a raised platform, supported by four giant chains that held the platform over a bed of lava. There was a giant statue that overlooked the anvil - Gond? This dwarven guy with the hammers was laughing maniacally (like a prick, you know?) while working. He didn’t care a bit about my greeting and questions. He also had a metal golem bodyguard with him who was swotting mephits as he worked. The dagger the guy made was crap, but upon finishing it, light glowed from the hammers, and then he was covered in golden plate. I think I could hear the voice of Carric mouthing a pissed off sentence about not wanting to be associated with this time-wasting prick.
The gold plated lunatic sprang at me with the hammers. My adamantine plate could take it - most of the time - but I could really feel the percussive impact of those hammers.
Calla did a big book spell and engulfed the metal golem in a giant, impenetrable, magical hamster wheel. For most of the battle, the golem could only roll around in its ball. However, before Calla casted the spell, the golem’s head separated from its body as a flaming skull. Robin primarily dealt with the skull with some frosty magic rays. Thurghor came to back me up against the golden git.
Thurghor kept farting spores, or something. Not entirely sure what that was about, although he did seem to magically heal from time to time. Everything about him is a bit weird, like say, bringing a fishing rod to a battle! Still, the last laugh was his though. With the golden git in front of me, I reached out and touched his golden plate and casted the Heat Metal spell. I thought it was hot in this place, but this guy began roasting, ha! But then Thurghor outdid my Heat Metal spell, by using his fishing rod as a magical whip and pulling the golden git into the lava and turning the oven’s heat up on the roasted dwarf. My Heat Metal spell was upstaged by a fishing rod! Can you believe it? Ha!
When golden git was done for, the elven-looking hammers rested on the edge of the lava. Robin rescued them with what looked like Archie’s lazy wizard magic, where he can pick up objects with his mind. Lazy or not, I appreciated it, since I wasn’t gonna stick my hand in the lava to pick up those hammers no matter how awesome they looked. I did though ready my Spiritual Guardians, my beautiful mini versions of me with angelic wings. These beautiful little buggers can wallop the opposition with radiant pain.
The spoilsport in the hamster wheel rolled away from my spirit guardians though, the coward! He came back though when Calla dropped the sphere spell so we could deal with him. We battered it dead with radiant, frosty, eldritch and… fishing rod force (to be fair, the rod emitted lightning and was magically sturdy as if it was a polearm).
The golems flaming skull was still flitting about though, even with its body motionless, so I aimed a perfectly shot Guiding Bolt at it up in the air and that was that. Oh, and all the mephits had been dealt with too.
Getting Out
I really liked the place. I’d love to go back, except what a shit location for the best forge in existence! I suppose the Fire Plane is clearly a great location in that the fire is on hand - quite essential for a forge, of course. But fuck me the place was brutally hot! It was like a bloody forge, right?! Ha, ha!
Dubozs was nowhere to be found. Of course he didn’t have a plan to extract us. I was able to use Sending magic the next day to contact Jenna at Fort Ettin to retrieve us. She did - she’s good!
Before we left though, we filled up a cart full of; iron, silver, and a few bars of adamantine. I reckon we had just under eight hundred gold of good material. We also found a spare smithing kit, and I took the Carric and Nevarra - the magical hammers. I let Calla have a look, since she’s into crafting too. She mentioned an overwhelming urge to make things when she held the hammers. I just felt more of the same when I held them. The hammers seemed better suited for the forge than battle, so I said I’d give them a go, and let Calla use them if she came to visit.
While we had to wait for a day for me to be able to cast the Sending spell, we looked at the other path and found another obelisk. This obelisk explained the same lovers' tale, but a little more from Nevarra’s perspective.
The next day, after getting to Fort Ettin, with the hammers I finally made the perfect dagger for General Manteen! I reckon I’d look really fucking cool charging into battle with a couple of hammers, but I really feel these hammers are better suited for the forge, and I’m kind of invested in my elf-lover hammers and their relationship. I don’t want to speed up their separation, and this has nothing to do with the fact that the hammers make it so that smithing is faster, and especially faster when crafting magical items. All that’s just extra reason not to speed up Carric’s end.
Oh and I sent a Sending to Duboze: "Left us in Fire Plane, git! Got ourselves out. Forge is great place. Try not to ruin with festival! We cleared mephits. You're welcome."
