Seeking Runeforge, Part II (Monday-Tuesday, Abadius (I) 27th-Calistril (II) 4th, 4708 AR)
More information about Runeforge was divined via spells like commune - and by researching the topic at the Thassilonian library under Jorgenfist. The one bit of information missing from this was Runeforge's location. This was one of the most closely guarded secrets of the Thassilonian Empire, and it was why the Scribbler's rhyme was so important. Divination spells could not reveal Runeforge's location. Once the heroes had uncovered the Scribbler's masterpiece, these same divination spells were incredibly helpful in deciphering its riddle, organizing its stanzas into the proper order, and verifying theories and interpretations of the poem.
The heroes travelled to Rimeskull using greater teleport to reach the shores of Lake Stormunder. They approached the Sihedron Circle.
The Sihedron Circle
From the rocky eastern shoreline of Lake Stormunder, the ground rose into the craggy snow-dappled roots of Rimeskull, casting its long shadow over the area. Yet not all of the ground was rugged and mountainous. Several hundred feet form the lake's edge, the land suddenly leveled off to create a circular hill. Rocks and tenacious shrubs poked through the scattered clumps of snow, but they were dwarfed by the ring of seven ten-foot-tall stone heads that circled the hill's edge, their faces angled inward at each other, mouths agape. To the east, the sheer mountainside of Rimeskull rose, icy and windblasted - two hundred feet above leered a carving of an ancient face, its gaping mouth forming a large cave entrance in the mountainside. A ten-foot-wide stairway of stone descended from this cave to a ledge only fifty feet to the east of the circle of stone faces.
Looming nearly 16,000 feet above Lake Stormunder at the western tip of the Kodar Mountains, the mountain called Rimeskull gained its fearsome name from a vaguely skull-shaped formation near the mountain's peak, visible for many miles on a clear day. Few know the true story of Rimeskull. The heroes noted that in Thassilon, the runelords often carved depictions of their visages upon mountaintops or towering statues that watched over their cities. Rimeskull's face, however, was marked with a carving of the face of Xin. The original visage had eroded away to little more than the vague skull shape that remained today.
Identifying the Stone Heads: The seven stone heads had staved off the effects of erosion as they marched through the years. In order to manifest a key, one had to subject the stone head to a spell effect of a school identical to the aura shed by the stone. Detect magic was the simplest method of determining what schools of magic the stone heads radiated. The heroes identified each of the stone heads, correlating to the visages of the seven runelords, and thus which school of magic each head related to.
Securing a Runeforge Key: Each stone head guarded one of the seven keys needed to enter Runeforge - the proper way to extract each key involved casting specific types of magic on the stone heads. A spell effect needed only be cast next to the stone head in order for the stone head to absorb the spell. An absorbed spell did not create the desired effect - instead, the head that absorbed the spell glowed with energy for a moment and the ground vibrated as a piercing trill emanated from the head. The glow and the sound faded completely after several seconds, at which point a gold key appeared in its mouth.
Arkrhyst - called Freezemaw by the Shoanti - was an ancient white dragon who lived on Rimeskull. In his youth several centuries ago, Arkrhyst was a great and hated enemy of the Shoanti; his raids on the nomads of the Velashu Uplands and the western Storval Plateau were legendary, and many of those tribes still sang of those dark times, and of the countless heroes who sought out his home on Rimeskull to defeat him. None accomplished this goal.
The heroes recalled stories of Arkrhyst's raids on the Shoanti, and that 200 years ago, the dragon's raids ceased. Many thought he had been slain, but no sign of his supposedly vast treasure ever appeared - wiser scholars of things draconic believed that Arkrhyst had simply been sleeping for many, many years.
Arkrhyst was invisible before he entered combat. Arkrhyst flew low over heroes (or just above the standing stones) and used his breath weapon, and at the same time his frightful presence weakened his enemies' morale. When his opponents scattered, he singled a random opponent out in between when he could breathe and made either a flyby tail slap or a bite so that he could snatch an opponent, carry it aloft, and drop it onto the rocks below. He killed Shalelu and Thurden using these tactics before the heroes fled back to Sandpoint.
Once in Sandpoint, they took some time to resurrect their fallen companions and prepare for another encounter with Arkrhyst.
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