Post by Andy D on Sept 21, 2024 21:08:38 GMT
On Trying to Find a Solution to Maintain Gadenthor’s Floating Operational State
The floating city of Gadenthor is more than a thousand years old. Despite its age, it is full of wonderful, magical and technological advancements beyond that which you will find in our concurrent, most advanced cities. The old Netherese wizards were advanced artificers whose skills eclipse that of our best arcanists today (I hope it is not self aggrandising to say this includes myself).
The floating city of Gadenthor spent many years on its side, having crashed into the land of Harnash that way. The Harnash citizens, through engineering force, managed to return Gadenthor to a functional, livable city, despite its sideways embedded state.
Only a few years ago now, Gadenthor rose again to the sky. During the Githyanki invasion, the invading army sought Gadenthor as a flying military base of operation from which to launch invasions. The Githyanki succeeded in capturing Gadenthor and were the ones who brought the city back up to the sky having managed to restore the magical operational command centre. Fortunately, the invaders, after a hard fought battle, were defeated. The now renewed floating city was returned to Harnashian control. Harnash’s brightest have been exploring the operational sky city to understand its workings and secrets, of which until now, they had not been aware. But this exploration has led to a discovery of great concern.
The orc archeologist, Delphium of Harnash, reached out to the Dawnland Adventurers about the alluded increasingly urgent and potentially catastrophic problem, requesting help.
The Harnashians have discovered that there has been an increasing malfunction in the magical command centre, Xeron. If a solution is not found to bring back the increasingly reduced control and power to Xeron, then Gadenthor is destined to crash to the ground once more.
Xeron appears to be losing what control it has to a seemingly second artificial being. Delphium took a team of us adventurers to a location rumoured to be significant for information gathering in the Gadenthor’s past. Said location, we discovered, was called Toe Beans, and was, one could describe as a cat themed cafe with actual cats to entertain the patrons.
In the stern, gothic Netherese culture it is not the done thing to frequent establishments meant for pure pleasure. A cafe where you can purchase a luxurious coffee and pastry, as well as pet a cat for company, is not something that would be looked on fondly in Netheril society, so I’m led to believe.
However, as we discovered, though pure pleasure is frowned upon, criminal machinations were de rigueur. In fact, Toe Beans had two functions; one was a secret cafe where patrons got to enjoy the company of cats, the other function was a meeting point where underground activities could be discussed.
How might an establishment as described above run in a city that would be hostile to it, and has magical security measures such as citywide Arcane Eyes to police its people? With its own magical counter measures of course.
When we walked into the remains of Toe Beans, the entrance casts an illusion on you, disguising your true identity, an automated Disguise Self spell, if you wll. The door to the backroom and kitchen had enchantment magic that caused non permitted entrants to sit back down and order a coffee.
Inside Toe Beans, on what would have been in the serving area, was a very old sack of coffee beans with a name branded onto the sack, Nostalgia. The beans had not rotted away in all that time, and this was because they were infused with magic; nostalgic enchantment magic. The magic had spread into the air causing us explorers to magically experience a few memories from a thousand years ago that took place in the cafe. We experienced these memories as if we ourselves were the people involved in that time. I myself experienced the memories as Gianni the barista of Toe Beans whose dedication to coffee making was strangely, and dare I say, admirably similar to the professionalism I uphold when mixing alchemical concoctions.
In this historical experience, we got to meet the owner of the establishment, Jericho, the self proclaimed Joy Magician, and possible Edge Lord of the city - Edge lords being people that ran Gadenthor, and seemingly from an underground network.
We discovered another remnant of Toe Beans, that Delphium will be consulting to learn more about the city, and how it can, with luck, be saved. We found a mirror in Jericho’s office that had a Simulacrum-like spell conjured into the mirror. The mirror simulacrum of Jericho, some thousand years later, was still fully functional, and was able to inform us of an individual, Pae, whose base of operations in the city are next worth locating, if Harnash is to discover a way to keep Gadenthor afloat.
The Gadenthor Archeological Adventuring Team
The mirror simulacrum of Jericho was functioning when we discovered it. However, its magic was waning. Our halfling artificer friend was key to ensuring that Jericho’s simulacrum survived transference from its breaking mirror vessel to a new vessel, inside a gemstone. While I assisted Sterling with my arcane knowhow - in particular a clever usage of the Creation spell - it was his artificing that was key to the success of the magical surgery we performed. Credit must also be given to; Dee’arna, a new yuan-ti adventurer, for noticing the Jericho-lacrum’s imminent demise. Mittens, my fellow wizard, and tabaxi friend too impressed me, with his arcane intelligence in how he pointed out a potential solution to our magical dilemma, and also credit must be given to Finnegan, our halfling bard friend, for his charming persuasive manner that helped warm the Jericho-lacrum to our questioning.
On the Possibilities of Two Dr. Haltuhrs
Whilst my young clone matures nicely, (twenty days left, if calculations are correct) I became aware, upon reflection of my recent time in Gadenthor, that I have overlooked the spell Simulacrum.
Though the construct produced by the spell is less robust than the simulated target, and it does not have replenishing magical reserves, it nevertheless could provide valuable assistance to me, if I were to target myself as the creature to be simulated. Though a simulacrum of myself could never increase its knowledge, at the time of casting, it would have more than enough brain power to be capable of following my orders for mixing alchemical compounds, and possibly might be able to craft spell scrolls for me?
It is worth exploring the limits of the Simulacrum spell’s construct. It is another highly costly spell, but the assistance it may provide could be worth the cost, and advance my research considerably. In addition, without wishing to sound conceited, I feel I have a pleasant, cheerful, and gentlemanly manner. An imitation of myself, I should hope, would be most welcome in the community.