After stepping through Vigdis’ portal, they found themselves in a partially restored old Manacalon manor.
“Violet” turned out to be “Master Violet Goodcheer”, a researcher for the Circle of Danantar. She had restored the mansion in the Badlands as her center of operations – including repairing its Major Gate. She was a former adventurer considered an expert on Manacalon magic and Mages. Exactly Tess’s sort. When they eventually managed to break up Tess and Violet’s increasingly animated discussion on the finer points of Manacalon calligraphy, they were able to focus on the business at hand. Violet told them that the sigil on the Manacalon box which had held Vigdis’ Claw Amulet was that of the Manacalon wizard “Exonaïka the Traveler”. Exonaïka was a specialist in teleportation magic, and was the inventor of the Major Gate system. She also apparently was experimenting with dimensional travel, and according to Violet her notes made some mention of Demons… Violet told them that Exonaïka had been the headmaster of an Arcane Academy in the city of Telema – now a ruins in the badlands. Violet herself had made previous forays into Telema, but she said there were still areas she had been unable to penetrate. She suggested they look there for further clues. It would be a week’s journey to get there from Violet’s house, but that was still closer than from any other known Major Gate location, so they quickly set out.When they reached Telema they found a small Scavenger base operated by an elven couple – Rhuad and Lena Swifthand. The Swifthands were former adventuring companions of Violet, who now made a living procuring and selling Manacalon artifacts from ruins such these. They told Roland that in their last deep foray into the ruins of the Academy proper, years ago, they had run afoul of what they now knew to have been Soraks. They had lost their mentor Hector in the chaos when a section of ruins collapsed as Violet threw a fireball to enable their escape. They claimed that most of the area was pretty well picked over by now, but there was still a part of the Academy guarded by an impenetrable magically-locked door which to their knowledge nobody had ever been able to enter.Thy made their way to the ruins of the Academy, and soon found the sealed door which the Swifthands had told them about.The door appeared completely un-pickable by Kat and un-force-able by Roland and Falcon, but when Tess stepped near it it began glowing in harmony with a ring on her finger. The ring she was given as a gift by the Adrasteia – the dragon of Abjuration. When she touched it to the door, it opened…Inside they found a ledge overlooking a deep chasm, with pillars that looked as if they had once supported a bridge. And a ledge with a door on the other side. But in the rubble at their feet – just on the other side of the door – lay a dead partially-transformed Sorak Infiltrator half-buried in rubble! It appeared he had tried to circumvent the door but had been crushed when the area collapsed.
Amongst his belongings were several coded documents. Tess could not entirely decipher them, but could read enough to indicate that the Sorak had infiltrated the Scavengers – as well as oblique references to other planned operations. Much was hinted. Much was left out. But it made clear that this was likely the “Hector” the Swifthands had known, and Sorak operations and/or plans were hinted at in Masgarth, Telema, Gallivan, the Snow Alliance, and someplace called “Highrock”.After passing through the door they came upon a chamber with a Manacalon Major Gate – but one unlike any they had seen before. It had several identical glyphs above it, with similar glyphs inscribed on nearby columns. The column glyphs had keyholes, and only one currently contained a key – and that matched the three glyphs over the Gate. Tess wasn’t quite certain how it worked, but it was clearly some form of configurable portal. She believed the current configuration was stable, but that is all she could tell.They made the decision to step through the gate. Inside the found the remains of a large private library. Tess found research notes scattered on a desk indicating that this was indeed the remains of Exonaïka’s research study! They also discovered one additional key and some notes indicating viable combinations – notably *without* indications where those combinations led… Hoping for the best, they returned to the portal chamber and tried the only other combination they could make with the two keys in hand.This led them to what appeared to have been the same room as before, but now burning, wrecked, and with a weird smell and an oppressive red light. They began to explore, hoping to find more information, when suddenly a number of demons appeared in the room!These demons appeared similar to those that had attacked them on the bridge earlier, but far more dangerous. Falcon and Tess were incapacitated for almost the entire fight due to their high-pitched wailing shrieks. They were going to need to be better prepared to fight such things in the future! They quickly searched the area for keys and notes, and then returned to the portal chamber and changed the combination.They tried another combination, and found themselves in an eerie, dark chamber with a glowing mist. And they were *not* alone. In the room with them was a hazy, glowing, indistinct but unmistakable… Dragon! And before they could even speak the Spectral entity breathed a jet of acid and attacked!It took all their skills and power to defeat this foe. It seemed implacable – with all the power of a Dragon but clearly neither fully-corporeal nor fully alive!
Once it was finally defeated and banished they again searched the area. This time Tess looked in horror as she realized what the scattered notes indicated. What had been meant by a “Phylactery”. Exonaïka had been a Dragon – similar to the Masters they had met and known of before. But Exonaïka had tied her soul to this… demi-plane. As some means of anchoring her when she explored other worlds. When the Cataclysm had drained Solasta of magic she had died like many other Dragons, but with her soul bound to this place her spirit had been trapped. Her soul had literally been trapped in this room going insane for the past thousand years! They could only shudder in sympathy, and take comfort in the knowledge that they had just unwittingly released her from that torment. Roland blessed the room – just to be sure, and said a prayer for the departed. Then they returned to the main chamber.The next combination led them to what again appeared to be the same room, but in some sort of dreamy, ethereal place. And spread across the room were treasures collected from throughout Exonaïka’s travels. Roland didn’t want to touch any of it, leaving it as a memorial to Exonaïka. But Tess and Kat convinced him to accept two items – as Exonaïka’s notes indicated they had been intended explicitly for combatting extra-planar threats.One was a magnificent sword which simultaneously gleamed with flame and frost in a bizarre combination of opposites. The other was a fine dagger explicitly designed to slay Demons…
Having tried the verified combinations, the last could only be the connection to the Manacalon gate network. They used their codeword for Violet’s house, and stepped through.
Violet was excited to see Exonaïka’s notes, and wanted to get started immediately to see if she could learn any more about the Sorak’s likely goals with Demons and the Snow Alliance from them. But when they showed her the notes they had found on Hector, she became worried. Not to learn that Hector had been a Sorak. She said she had always found him unsettling and untrustworthy. She was upset by the reference to Highrock. It was a small outpost in the Badlands, and she had friends stationed there. She wanted to immediately drop everything and run to Highrock to check on them. But Roland convinced her that if she stayed and got to work researching Exonaïka’s noted they would go to Highrock, check on her friend Garrad, and investigate the situation there.
Highrock was not a far journey from Violet’s house, and so that is where they travelled next….
3 responses to “Solasta: Dimensional Discoveries”
atcDave
I love how you got the library in several different aspects. The dragon is awesome. And Roland’s new sword looks terrific.
but the reaction shot of Violet is amazing. Did you edit it in OpenArt? I mean, you can’t get that consistency with Co-Pilot?
I’ll explore it more in my multiple-rendering article, but both Violet’s reaction shot and the library were achieved entirely within Copilot, and using the same trick.
You can’t get that kind of consistency *between renders* with Copilot… but you can *in a single render*. So for the library, for example,. I just did this and then cropped out the four images:
For Violet it was very similar. Describe the scene with her reading the scroll, and then say “generate two images: in the first she is excited and in the second she is worried”. Or words to that effect.
Leave a Reply