Written by:AWizardInDallas
5/11/2008 4:58 PM

From the Private Journal of Duira Siannodel:
(Player Submitted Entry)

"Well we managed to kill all the forest trolls and burned them so they wouldn’t come back, and the Thorns who helped us were nice and as a thank-you, gave us four vials of barkskin potion.  Not exactly the nice crown I was wearing for awhile, but who’s counting?  Conveniently, the ridge above the area where we fought the trolls was also the gateway to Silvermote.  It didn’t look quite like Dad had described it in his diary, but close enough to recognize the standing stones.  The actual entry was a structure made of white stone with green veins running through it and a door with a big tree carved in it.  Funny thing about the door: there was no lock and no way to open it: no markings or anything, and yet it was obviously a mechanical door.  We were rather dumbfounded, especially since Saille and I are rather good at such things.  While we were contemplating the issue, one of the Petals came along, so I talked her out of the information we needed: one need only wait until nightfall and the moon letters would reveal themselves, though the Petal didn’t know what they said.  So, we hung out until nightfall, and there were the moon letters, in Common.  And, it was a riddle, of course.  Tsk.  Elves.  The riddle itself took us quite awhile to figure out (naturally, I was the one who finally did so: I am the more cunning of the Siannodel sisters, after all).  Unfortunately, the moon letters and the riddle they revealed did not demand that everyone give me their treasure and worship me in the manner to which I should be entitled.  Instead, it read:

I am the leafless tree grown in fearful earth
In dark places and lands with no mirth
As high as kings and moons
As false as harlots and loons
As lost as mettle and wits
As found as traps and pits
Name me and you may have me yet

Mentally, I considered “I dub thee Lia!” (a very common Elven name) but held my tongue since that probably wouldn’t have worked.  You can blame the humans I was raised among for that little bit of humor.  In any case, Saille blurted out “Elder,” which was a good guess, since that is the tree of death.  Nothing happened, though, and we all started guessing (except Brilliant, who appeared to be just standing there, though maybe he was keeping watch).  Ultimately, I came up with the answer: Hope.  When I said it, every e, h, o, and p lit up, so I said it again, and then a third time.  Since nothing different happened when I said it a third time, I walked up and touched the letters of the word hope in order, and the door opened.  Told you I’m the smart one.  Anyway, we moved in and everything was covered in vines.  There was a platform just inside the door, then stairs downward just beyond that.  Hilda said something had flown past her, but we didn’t see what it was, nor could we see what was moving around in the vines above.  So, on we went, down to another platform leading to more stairs down in the opposite direction.  On the platform was what was once a high elf, still in armor, but gross.  We thought he might be a zombie, but on his head were vines instead of hair.  He didn’t respond to the ‘hello’s’ uttered by Draupnir and Lanius in various languages, and as we approached, he didn’t move.  We didn’t want to attack, since for all we knew, he might be a guardian of this place.  Instead, we moved past him and down the stairs, where there were two more former elves just like him, just standing there.  I thought for sure we were heading into a trap and were going to end up surrounded, but as we had few options, on we went.  Just about the time I was moving between the last two of the former elves, we started getting shot at by tiny arrows, and the vines below us started attacking, and one even blew some sort of dust at Shiny (note to self: don’t call him that out loud).  Those in front started hacking at the vines and those of us in the rear started fighting the former elves.  They weren’t exactly zombies: it was like they’d been turned into plants themselves and were maybe under the control of the weird vine plant thing.  Their blood was even green.  Yuck.  I shot the arrow I had and then as soon as I could, I made a strategic retreat toward Shiny.  Meanwhile, Saille moved up and pretty much blew the elf-turned-veggie away with her fists: it was classic.  Gross, but classic.  She got some of the goo on me, but she got a great deal more of it on Lanius, and you have to admire that.  Anyway, we dispatched all three goo-zombies and the vine plant thing, I snagged a couple of the flowers (which resembled orchids) and put them in a bag in my backpack.  Meanwhile, Jalis used a water spell to hose off Lanius and myself and we moved on.  The dwarves again leading the way, we clambered over the main part of the dead vine plant, which had apparently broken though the walls from the ground outside.  Draupnir was the first to spot a half-eaten elf in its midst, and relieved the poor soul of its ring and some other stuff.  Lanius found something too, but there was nothing left by the time I went over.  Vultures.  Oh, well: I’ll find a way to compensate myself.  I mean, console myself. 

Once we’d gotten over the vine thing, there were more stairs, another landing, and more stairs, all running probably parallel to each other but in opposite directions, like a big “W” that finally ended at a door.  Beyond the door was a long hallway with sconces on the left, unlit but appearing normal, so on we went.  Eventually, the hall opened up into a room, but about 20 feet away from the room, as the dwarves stepped forward, they were fired at from both sides by arrows coming from the walls.  Obviously a trap.  They stepped forward again, and were again shot at.  Obviously a series of traps.  So, Saille told them to stand still and she went up and tried to identify the trigger so she could perhaps spot the next trap and either disable it or show the rest of us where it was.  Unfortunately, while she was (with, of course, my help) finally able to find the trigger that had already been set off, we were both unable to find the next ones, though it seemed fairly obvious there would be more.  Since we were unable to locate them, we also weren’t able to disarm them, so after a bit of discussion, Draupnir ran straight through on the right side and on into the room.   Unfortunately, just inside the entrance to the room, where he stopped, there was a trigger on the floor that closed a portcullis between the room and the hall, that none of us had spotted.  Saille tried to find the mechanism to raise it back up, but since she couldn’t, she and Draupnir managed to pull it upwards to about 6 feet: high enough for all of us to simply walk under the thing and enter the room.  At this point, we all figured the whole room was full of triggers and traps, and Shiny stayed in the hallway in case he needed to help us get out again. 

Across the room from the portcullis was a beautiful, ornate door, obviously of elven make, and in the middle of the room was a fountain flowing with a silver liquid.  Jalis handed Hilda his dagger, and she stuck the blade in the fountain and pulled it out again, only to find it was then treated with alchemical silver.  Talk about flowing rivers of wealth.  We took that opportunity to dip whatever small weapons we had in the fountain, and then started searching for writings, clues, and especially more stinkin’ triggers.  Surprisingly, the ornate door at the far end turned out to be just a false door, so we started looking for anything else, since surely this fountain could not be all of Silvermote.  Saille and I started moving around the room on the other side of the fountain, checking for traps as we went, and also looking for other doors or writings or anything at all (preferably ‘good’ stuff and nothing that was going to kill us).  Meanwhile, Draupnir cast a spell and determined there was something magic on the other side of the fountain, very near where he stood.  With few other options, and in the hopes that it would open, say, a door to the secret treasure room, or at least the door to the conveniently-labeled lycanthropy cure, we stood back while he triggered the glyph.  I must say, this little group of folk has a serious lack of luck.  Instead of a magic portal to glory and wealth, we were pounced on by some really huge, nasty, red-eyed wolves.  One nearly took me out twice.  I did no small amount of damage with my bow (not that it’s hard to hit something that big at that range) and Saille, bless her, pummeled a couple of them into goo.  Unfortunately, she didn’t get any on Lanius this time, but nobody’s perfect.  With the wolves dispatched and our wounds mostly healed, we resumed our search, but there was nothing else except the trap triggers we already knew were in the hallway.  Avoiding those, we went out into the main hallway and inspected the wall sconces: nothing.  We even lit them: nothing (except, obviously, additional light).  A few of us were becoming convinced that this was merely a false entrance to Silvermote and that the true entrance must be back outside, not accessible from the white and green stone door.  Jalis, however, mentioned secret doors, and there were a few things we hadn’t closely searched, but we were tired and still somewhat injured (and Lanius needed to rest and study up on his spells) so we returned to the fountain room, triggered the portcullis to come down, and rested in the fountain room.

Having rested and studied, we started from the fountain room and worked our way forward, intentionally triggering the last of the two traps.  Fortunately, they didn’t do much damage to Draupnir, who had volunteered to be the target.  The triggers having been set off, we proceeded down the hall, Saille and I side by side, searching as we went.  About 45 feet from the portcullis, my hand went though the wall opposite the sconces (a weird sensation, I can tell you).  Draupnir told me I should stick my head through and I said “after you.”  He only meant that there might be no floor, but I wasn’t about to literally stick my head through without knowing what might be waiting to chop it off.  Ultimately, the dwarves went through first, and hey, no big chopping blades.  Instead, it was a sort of side hall with a big pedestal, on which were two statues that looked very much like gargoyles.  On the other side of that was a door.  Having checked that for traps and finding nothing, I unlocked the door, intending to step back and allow the fighter types to go through first.  Unfortunately, my having unlocked the door made the gargoyles come to life.  Lanius moved forward, cast some kind of pseudo magic missile that hit both of the gargoyles, and then ran out of the room.  Arrows started flying and I stepped into the main hallway, since I hadn’t any weapons drawn (hard to hold a weapon ‘and’ pick a lock, after all).  There wasn’t much space in the side hall, especially with the large pedestal, so Shiny moved into the hall, apparently to get a better vantage point (he’s short, but he doesn’t seem to run from battle at all).  One gargoyle flew up from the pedestal and attacked Hilda.  Meanwhile, I had gone out into the main hall, ran down to where I knew I would be behind the pedestal, then stepped back into the side hall to shoot from there.  As I stepped into the side hall, I noticed a bag on the floor by the pedestal.  Unfortunately, it was too big to simply pocket before shooting, so I shot my arrow at the flying gargoyle.  The gargoyle in the room was killed quickly and the battle moved into the main hall before I could reposition myself, leaving only me and Draupnir’s bird in the side hall.  I could hear that they had dispatched the other gargoyle, so I spoke aloud and told them there was treasure here: in the moments that it took them to ask if I was feeling alright, I snagged a rose quartz from the bag and pocketed it (fortunately, out of view of the bird, who was on the other side of the pedestal, probably watching the door I’d unlocked) before bringing it out for Draupnir to carry for the part to split later (the rest was just coins, but I’ll be sure to get my fair share). 

That done, we went through the door I’d unlocked, which, naturally, lead to more stairs.  Good thing I’m in shape.  Good thing the dwarves can take a few hits, too, because there were more triggers and more arrows flying out of the walls.  There was also a dead drow at the bottom of the stairs, probably from Karkana Amon, who had some cool black Elvenkind stuff on.  I considered trading my grey stuff for his black stuff, to go with my armor, but I’m not too keen on drow stuff.  Not that I’ve got a grudge or anything, but you never know who does, and I don’t wanna get caught in the wrong alley with a bunch of drow stuff on.  I did, however, talk my comrades out of the black gloves he was wearing, and was surprised when they resized themselves to fit me.  They seemed to make it quite a bit easier to move my hands, too, which is surprising for gloves, but then, these obviously aren’t ordinary gloves."

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