Characters: Julian, Balin, Samael, Grim, Anthony, Cael, Randal.
NPCs: Alaphondar Emmarsk: High Sage of Cormyr, Draconic Ruin Swarm.
L 10 Mirtul 1374 - L 11 Mirtul 1374
6500 XP
The party was teleported from the fading starlight of the Wyvernwater Lake to a small room somewhere underground. Its elegant stone carved relief was illuminated by the adventurer's magical auras. Cael read the walls and found them to be funeral references to Cormyrian Knights, among them, some of Cormyr's greatest Purple Dragon generals. Julian and Samael examined the only exit from the room, a silver-gilded double door with handles shaped into two curling dragons. Julian found the door to be protected with powerful transmutation, abjuration, and universal schools of magic. In addition, a familiar magical aura still lingered upon the door, Alaphondar. Without any time to waste Julian used his Universal Key, the doors lurched open.Beyond the silver doorway was a yet smaller squared room, its carvings significantly simpler, depicting dragons and constellations with Star Metal inset into the stone walls. Balin took notice that despite the carvings old age, these constellations not only depicted the night sky above Cormyr correctly, but for this exact year and week. Randal focused upon the room's central feature, a glorious stone altar whose grandeur far exceeded the cramped space it was built in. He noted it had been built there with the same stone and craft work, and that the old knights may have used for reverent purposes by the half-kneelers built into its front. The room lacked a second door and thus Samael began to search for signs of Teleportation in the room. In doing so he noted the altar was slightly off keel, angling by a small degree toward an awkward direction. Balin determined it to be true north using the Big Dipper and found that when he focused his eyes upon the constellations the room's square lines disappeared and became an expansive dome reminiscent of the night sky.
The adventurers shifted the stone altar about its radius counter-clockwise until it suddenly locked into place directly parallel to the room's lines. Samael's keen sense of balance allowed him to perceive that the entire tomb had just shifted to a new arbitrary alignment. Balin, Julian, and Grim made numerous attempts to shift the stone into the correctly alignment again but to no avail. Their troubles in deciphering this problem were allowing Alaphondar more time to escape. Julian and Samael combined together to disable the magical altar, setting off a guardian trap within the Star-metal runes. The party was Teleported into a much larger room as they were simultaneously hit with starry light which Dispelled nearly all of their magical equipment.
They found themselves standing atop a large pile of glittering pieces which filled a great pool. Around the edges of the pool there were hundred of precious scrolls, art pieces, and offerings which delicately walled them in due to their sense of caution. Suddenly the pile came to life. The party was quickly being consumed with a flurry of gold, silver, and copper which obscured their vision and cut them deeply. It was then they realized these were not precious metal coins, but dragon scales. The party rushed toward the edge finding the pool was quickly deepening as more of the scales whirled to life in the air. Locked in, Grim cast powerful fireballs into the swarm, shaping the effects to not harm his fellow adventurers. Julian mimicked this spell and doubled the fiery damage. Cael summoned a storm of his own, an icy cold smashed into the storm shattering scales and slowing their flurry. Randal and Samael defended themselves smashing and dodging scales. The swarm continued to draw from its depth, pulling the party deeper into the pool's basin and growing in strength. Anthony Manton healed the party as Balin Firestormed the swarm around him. After what seemed like an endless tornado of scales, blood, and magic the great Draconic Ruin Swarm dissipated in millions of shattered pieces.
The party carefully crawled out of the deep pool making sure not to crush any precious offerings. Around them was a vast tomb, with hundreds of sarcophagi and relics of old Cormyrian patriots. After much searching through the tomb the party found it to be filled with the greatest knights, wizards, healers, politicians, poets, and engineers Cormyr had ever known, all Knights Draconis. Their tombs and the relics within told great forgotten tales of a Cormyr which few had known, buy many had speculated. What they had found would fill in many of the absent gaps which seemed to have been so carefully censored from the Library of Suzail. The party had confirmed what only poets, dreamers, and patriots would believe in Cormyr, the existence of the Knights Draconis.Cael read from the journals of the earliest Knights Draconis and learned that they were in fact an organization founded by Aleron Obarskyr himself. The Knights were dedicated to protect Cormyr's three most vital assets, the Crystal Grot (a legendary cave filled with precious gems and metals), the True Obarskyr Bloodline, and the Purple Dragon. The Inner Sanctum knight journals discussed the Purple Dragon, and spoke of Her in familiar terms. They would attend to Her and the Crystal Grot directly. The Outer sanctum Knights may have never been within the grot but included many of Cormyr's greatest defenders, innovators, and leaders. Interestingly, the most highly held Inner Sanctum Knights, lacked sarcophagi or any other chamber to hold remains. Their greatest honor was to be consumed by the great dragon Herself. The party also learned that the four most important Outer Sanctum members, the High Knights were each given a single scale from the great Purple Dragon, a fifth Knight, leader of the entire outer sanctum never received such a piece.
The party cursed that they have more time to study this massive chamber, however many hours had passed and Balin told that night was again falling on the surface above. Balin and Samael tracked Alaphondars path through the tomb and found it to stop near a set of completed, but un-marked or adorned burial chambers. This particular one, built for a great warrior and lord, Woodbrand perhaps? Alaphondar would have stopped and picked something from the tombs back surface. Could Woodbrand have been a High Knight Draconis of the outer sanctum? And worse could Alaphondar now possess Woodbrand's purple scale? The party Teleported to the Gardens of Suzail. The night sky was growing increasingly familiar.
