Patience is Golden - 6.11.24 - Dee’arna
Nov 10, 2024 21:26:12 GMT
Yinmaris, tomdm, and 2 more like this
Post by ruthcd on Nov 10, 2024 21:26:12 GMT
Connected to the events of Words Upon Your Skin, and following the events of Patience is Golden, Dee'arna's latest diary notes.
I have spent so much time grasping hold of the vision in the feywild, the path that Yinmaris and his sleeping Queen led me on. I knew none of it may be true… but who would I be if I did not follow any clue I could?
So I copied the words on my skin in fresh ink. I recalled the angle of the sun, the colour of the sand, and the sound of the wind in that place where reality and its absence collided.
All of which led me to a potential site that matched those details, on the south west side of Kundar in the Scorching Badlands.
So last week I decided it was the right day, and I had the right strength, to gather up some worthwhile companions and go and see - was it just a dream, or a map to my destiny?
I can say this - if all I had achieved in Kantas was to receive Kinoka I would call my efforts worthwhile.
Arriving at the estimated spot, the first thing I saw was a little friendly snake, hiding her eggs. I stopped Fern from hurting her and then… my ability to see through walls was activated. The secret of the location revealed that beneath us was a hidden landscape buried in the sand - houses, structures… and a door in the ground, leading even deeper below.
(yes, Crow, you helped me in this most important moment, I don’t forget)
With directions from Fern and myself, Luxemforth, Shway’Shway and Zaspar dug down to the doorway and unearthed a flat pair of stones, locked by some long-since eroded mechanism.
But here, Zaspar had a great idea. With my knowledge of yuan-ti history, and Fern’s insight into tools and mechanisms, he used his strange creation magic to reform the ancient gears, so we could turn the handle to release them.
It was an impressive feat. Unfortunately, not to be followed up.
Within minutes of walking down the corridor we had opened up, he had stepped on a pressure plate and released a giant boulder which rolled down the stairs - painfully crushing Fern. Luckily the rest of us were able to dodge away.
So I suggested that Luxemforth, who put himself forward as more skilled in trap detection, should go in front this time.
This was also a mistake.
Luxemforth also had an exaggerated sense of his own competence in such matters and set off another trap, landing in a pit of dead snakes.
From that point on, I took the time to teach both these rich boys of Kantas some basics of trap detection, how to watch for the less-worn stones, suspicious holes in walls, and so forth. Someone has to save their silly lives.
In the main chamber below there were two doors, and an intricate puzzle with sliding blocks to be arranged. Given the many options it presented, we opted to continue our explorations to uncover the solution later.
The left room contained a drawing of a snake, with a number of pictorial symbols scattered around it. The team and I were able to eventually translate this image into a map of Kantas! The snake matches the shape of its coastline, and so the symbols are locations. I was able to mark them against the locations of yuan-ti sites I already know about: the drowned temple in the Feythorn the BB told me about; the ancient site in the Angelbark, and the site of a great battle in the Spine.
Following these discoveries to the logical conclusion… each picture means a part of the ancient yuan-ti home here!
And the symbols - the shape that the central puzzle must be matched to!
Before resolving that solution though we turned to the other door, which is where I found her.
In a few temples to Lasseega before I had seen handprints in stone on altars with an empty ring beside them. But never before the golden snake inside them, still undisturbed! In truth, I never knew what to expect. So I was excited when I placed my hand in its place, and the metallic snake began to move in a circle, very very slowly.
I had a quick check around for any other puzzle aspects. But then Fern said that she could tell it would take a full hour for the snake to complete a single rotation.
Well. In that moment it became clear to me: all I need to do was *wait.*
I committed myself to patience, standing still, hand in place. The others took out snacks and had a picnic.
At the end of the hour, the snake slid out of its recess and up my arm. She is a glorious beautiful thing! Her name is *Kinoka* - and she is a precious holy weapon. I can fire Lasseega’s radiance when she takes the form of a bow, and otherwise she rests with me, a symbol, inspiration and connection to the Patient Trickster who is always with me.
In the lowest level, we found the birthing rooms and long-forgotten broodguard who attacked us. It was a shame to kill things so old, but it was a chance to see Kinoka in action, and firing my guiding bolts out of her bow-form felt perfect. Like a weapon I was always meant to have!
It was also interesting to see the grung Shway’Sway become as big as a room. Good to know what my fellow adventurers are capable of. Otherwise, nothing of huge significance in this last space.
But all of my findings are proof that Lasseega was worshipped here. I am on the right track! There are many forms of magic, so much more than the surface level stories of yuan-ti the humans have.
So the vision in the feywild - was true, it connected into the real, and led me on this path.
With Kinoka, and this priceless map, I must thank Yinmaris next time I see him!
Perhaps I should also send missives back home to tell them what I have discovered…
But, if news reached the wrong people? No, I should wait. Until I have myself a little more established in this community. And who knows what I will discover at the drowned temple in the Feythorn…
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Thank you to Tom for an amazing game, and a great team of players.
