Magic Shop Owners Session 20

Session Notes

Calendar Date: 37-3-596 - 39-3-596

AI Podcast Overview (From NotebookLM)

Travelling to Neverwell

• The rest of the party were tired and stayed in the Sarzan painting while Geog, Breadwig and Jatumal ventured into the Emerald Desert
• Following their map that they had gotten from the Dragi Castle they headed towards Neverwell, the town in the centre of the desert. Notably on the map there was a dotted line from Neverwell to the Tomb of the Elephant king that circled around the tomb and approached it from the east. There was also a riddle that read: "When light is first born, it must be shone, the Elephant King upon."
• Along the way they came across odd ruins with pointy metal antenna they had never seen before
• They looked inside some of these ruins and while investigating were attacked by a sand elemental. Jatumal set Antony, the box of cleaning ants, on the creature with little effect
• During the fight the elemental engulfed Jatumal, but Breadwig was able to cut him out with his Ignid tooth dagger.
• Then Jatumal, legs still stuck inside the sand elemental, cast hold person on the elemental holding it in place.
• With the elemental held in place they were able to make short work of it
• After they were able to deal with the elemental they took in the landscape of the Emerald Desert. It was mostly green dunes, but these were occasionally broken up by huge, tree sized, orange mushrooms, blue cacti and dark purple rocks
• Along the way to Neverwell they investigated one of these mushrooms which seemed edible when they cut a chunk out and ate it
• The mushroom they investigated was atop a dune and from there they could see some metal trees which they headed down to investigate. They tried poking at the trees with sword and poles before Jatumal decided to lick one. In doing so he saw a premonition of the Tom of the Elephant King disappearing when they got close to it.
• They tried digging under the trees but sand kept falling in so they gave up on that and moved on to the Unending Quarry
• From the top of the quarry they could see a large group of dwarves mining away
• They shouted down asking why the dwarves were there. They were searching for water. There was some back and forth shouting, before the foreman told them to come down if they wanted to speak more.
• The party found some stairs carved into the rock and headed over to the dwarves
• From the dwarf foreman, Davith, they discovered that the dwarves were mining for water because they were currently under the whim of Heston, a mirage mullah who governed the Thirsting Garden in Neverwell. This was an oasis, but the mullah would sometimes ask the people for sacrifices such as children, animals, and valuables in exchange for water. Also the water from the pool would make one ever thirsty if they drank too much or thirstbound.
• After chatting with Davith for a while and trying to understand the situation they moved on to Neverwell. They realised they each only had about a quarter of their waterskins full of none oasis water.

In Neverwell

• Neverwell was partially dug into the side of the quarry and partially built out of sandstone in the middle of the quarry
• Right in the centre was a large empty circle with lots of people gathered around it
• They explained they were waiting for the oasis and that it only appeared as the sunset and disappeared at dawn along with anything still in it. People left inside never returned
• It was getting dark so the party waited for the oasis to appear
• Soon it did and the people of Neverwell began queuing to see the mullah Heston
• The party tried to enter the oasis from the other side but Heston teleported in front of them and stopped them
• He explained that they had to trade something for the water from the oasis and they couldn't just walk in
• They had some back and forth during which Heston showed that he asked for gifts because he was bored and he actually didn't need any of them. Heston found slapstick comedy funny and Geog and Breadwig performed a routine which Heston granted them water from the oasis for.
• Jatumal was able to make Heston show off some of his magic by claiming that he couldn't do it. Heston's ego meant that he did. In doing so he turned into an ant, which Jatumal attempted to step on, and then transformed the oasis into a huge tower.
• After the back and forth Heston began to grow bored and shooed them away so he could see to his other patrons
• The water from the oasis tasted like mud
• After the encounter with Heston the party travelled to the Vulture Taproom, the local tavern, to find out more about the town. Inside were the bartender, a band of five adventurers sat on one table and a gnoll sat alone.
• They each got a cacteer, cactus beer, from the bar for a much higher gold price than outside of the desert. The beer was thick and blue and tasted awful
• Jatumal decided to speak to the lone gnoll. He was called Gareth. He was happy for company and from him Jatumal found out more about the town. There were priests of the last drink preaching to drink as little water as possible, Gareth had been forced by the town to sacrifice his son to Heston (as the gnoll children were often sacrificed first), and consul of the town was constantly hungover with his advisors truly running the show.
• The party grew sympathetic to Gareth and continued to talk and drink with him. It turned out his wife had been teleported to another realm by a scroll Gareth had found inside a golden egg. He was an archaeologist and Davith owed him a life debt, so he got much of the treasure that was found by the dwarves as they searched for water. Gareth had read the scroll sending his wife Raina away.
• The party offered to help Gareth find his wife if he could be their guide and help them find the Tomb of the Elephant King. He eagerly accepted and explained that the adventurers on the other table had also been searching for the tomb.
• So the party went to speak to the other adventurers. They were cautious about giving them too much information and especially did not want to show them the riddle. These other adventurers had been searching the desert for some time. They had found the tomb but whenever they got close it would disappear like a mirage. They agreed to team up and share the wealth with these adventurers as long as they could keep the lamp. The other adventurers did not know it contained a djinni. They also explained they had lost a few party members to traps in the other tombs and that the Tomb of the Elephant King would likely be worse as no one had ever gotten inside. Worryingly the adventurers noticed the desert seemed to go on forever in every direction, they worried if they tried to return to Elbon the desert would continue forever that way too
• After talking to the locals Gareth offered them board. At his house they had a fire beetle supper. They also inspected the golden egg and Breadwig began researching the scroll inside, it seemed Raina had been transported to a water realm. They then went to sleep eager to move toward the tomb in the morning
• Before setting off they decided to visit the dry markets in Neverwell to see if they could buy anything of use. Here freshwater was currency, but not oasis water. From the market they bought a tattered book of tomb trap schematics, a book containing the Tale of the Elephant King, an hourglass, and some sand that whispered when poured for a teaspoon of freshwater.
• After this they met up with the other adventurers and headed east towards the tomb

To the Tomb of the Elephant King

• Along the way they got trapped in a sandstorm which Gareth advised they should shelter from. They took shelter within the Kraken, Jatumal's boat. While waiting for the storm to pass they spoke to Sarzan, whose painting was now being kept on the boat, about the Tale of the Elephant King. It turned out he already knew they tale and had been alive for it
• He told them the tale. The Elephant King had invented great machines which were powered by running water. Some were metal carriages that were armour plated preventing the enemies of the Farseer Dwarves, who he was king of, from getting into Galdon which was now the Emerald Desert. His mechanisms also allowed easy transportation of goods and people around their towns. He wanted to expand their systems further and found the djinni lamps and the djinni inside granted three wishes. The king used the first to wish for all the water in the land and the djinni gave it to him, but transformed it into a giant emerald that floated above Galdon. With no water anywhere else the land became barren. The king then wished for a tool to break the emerald from the djinni in hopes of releasing the water, but when the giant emerald was broken it shattered into millions of tiny shards creating the sands of the Emerald Desert. After this the Elephant King sore never to use the final wish and locked the lamp away. When his great tomb was constructed he put the lamp inside on the deepest level.
• The party asked Sarzan to see if he could work out a wish which they could use to make the djinni help them stop the tarrasque without him tricking them like the Elephant King.
• After this and a conversation with the other adventurers about using the boat to surf the dunes the storm stopped and they proceeded towards the tomb
• Along the way they used the Kraken to surf the dunes, expanding the boat at the top and shrinking it at the bottom to keep the momentum going
• It was almost nightfall when they reached the sport where was supposed to be
• They took note that the dotted line on the map from the Dragi circled around and approached the tomb from the east so they did just that. They saw the image of the tomb and tried to approach and just as the adventurers had said the tomb disappeared when they got within about 50m of it.
• They waited until moonrise in the hopes that that would be "light first born" and approached again, but the same thing happened. Geog tried to throw a rock at the tomb, but it seemed to phase through. The image of the tomb was wobbly on the edges like it wasn't solid
• They then determined that light first born must mean the dawn and made camp.
• During the night they were attacked by four cactus cats, but Jatumal spotted them before they got close and quickly expanded the boat with everyone hopping inside. From the boat they used the painting they had which shot cannonballs from the Obsidian Keep, missing many times, but eventually hitting and obliterating one of the cats. The other cats ran
• The party quickly jumped down and began to drink the blood of the cat since their oasis water skins were now close to empty. They then cooked some of the meat and collected the rest
• Breadwig took the final watch and was thinking about how to save Gareth's wife from the painting when Dawn came. This almost distracted him from waking the other to try to enter the tomb.
• When he noticed he quickly got up and shook the others awake, they tried to approach the tomb again but again it disappeared.
• They then read the riddle again, but allowed the adventures to see. They pointed out that "the Elephant King Upon" could mean directing the light at one of the statues at the gates to the temple.
• Geog used his sword to direct the sunlight and the fuzziness at the edge of the image faded
• They sent the rogue from the group of adventurers forward first. He said the coast was clear and they all cautiously made their way toward the great gates of the tomb
• The rogue opened the door and stepped inside, he said he could not see any traps and the others began to follow. At this moment Jatumal remembered the book of trap schematics and quickly flicked to a page. He was fortunate to find a diagram of the trap they had just walked into allowing him to see an escape. The door slammed shut behind them.
  
• A huge cylinder began rolling down a slope towards them, there were alcoves with barrels on either side of them and a trench in the middle of the slope. One of the other adventurers dived into the trench while everyone else tried to scramble over the barrels following Jatumal.
• Two adventures did not make it over the barrels and were crushed by the cylinder. Another smaller cylinder rolled down the trench crushing the adventurer who had dived there. The cylinder also broke many of the barrels which released floods of acid into the room. The party found a door in the alcove but it was stuck. Everyone battered against it until it swung open. They fell in and Geog slammed the door behind them. They could hear the acid bubbling on the other side, but it did not come through.
• The air in the room was stale, it was filled with rotten cloth and crates of grain. The party realised that they may have been underprepared for this.

XP

650 xp = Sand Elemental
100 xp = 4 x Cactus Cat
750/3 = 250 xp each

Published Content Used

• OSE (Classic and Advanced)
• Creature Compendium (Monsters)
• Grimtooth's Ultimate Traps Collection (Traps)