Land of the Damned

Following information from Avenar you all went to a meeting spot in Harkem-Viol. The city ruins were of some race about twice the size of humans. After a little while you notice some strange things, like the movement of the ruins themselves. Fearing an attack you retreat to Theoninn and take off. Soon after, sensors pick up an energy spike and then a creature of some sort which Landros flies out to chat with. The story Landros tells you is that the creature instructed you all to meet in Marhund in 24 hours with the ring or else you would be pursued.

Instead, you all head for Raven , hidden somewhere deep inside the Land of the Damned. You find a desolate city formed of countless numbers of petrified insects that seems to be deserted. Of course, you quickly learn that this is the nocturnal dwelling of Mantus and his cohorts; so you return during the day when it is safer.

You don't run into too much trouble getting to the area of Raven, but you do run into the Goddess who tells you that you are welcome to take Raven as long as you are aware that removing it will lift the curse that banishes Mantus from this world in the daylight. Naturally, you have some misgivings about this, but she assures you that Mantus has no intentions for this world. Allowing Mantus to escape here might help balance the powers of the demon lords' various quests for power; Mania has been looking to overthrow and destroy her husband and having him in the land of the damned might save him a while yet.

So, with Raven in hand you head to Khul-Than Forge, discovering along the way that this runic item works in consort with Theoninn to power its Albucierre Drive. The ship rifts into an interior chamber. From there you head down a very large hallway with statues of armies lining either wall. At the end of this corridor you find what you believe to be the forge itself.

Before you can do much, Skedic troops launch an attack on you which is quickly supressed by Theoninn. Shortly after Ankar shows up hoping to negotiate with you; he wants the forge lit and asks for your help in doing so.

Could this be the culmination of a lifelong search for runic knowledge?

NOTE:

Technically, I made an error regarding the warp drive of Theoninn. In fact you would not have rifted into this area - you cannot pass through solid objects using the ship. It is essentially a line-of-site travel path. Obviously, I allowed you to get in, and getting out won't be a problem from a logistics point of view. But no more warping through solid objects.

The Temple of Ptelas

Using Lodos you are able to find the Temple in the mountains of the Yin-Sloth jungle. The plateau at the entrance of the temple is littered with very large cairns made of boulders, so landing Theoninn there was not possible. Fortunately there was a clearing near the base of a set of stairs that ascends from the depths of the jungle floor to the temple plateau.

Silus immediately senses something watching you from the jungle and Treasda quickly neutralizes about 12 tribal warriors. Things go uneventfully until you reach the plateau where a sniper starts taking shots at you all. Silus, Farallon and ??? sneak around to flank the sniper while Agar and the others keep him occupied. Eventually Silus drops the snipe with a poison blow dart and you all tie the bastard up. Farallon correctly guess from the Skedic uniform that this snipe was from Eta, meaning that Sonjia was most likely here.

You pick you way through a couple of booby-traps, find the main worship hall of the temple, disarm a remote alarm device and finally come to a great battle.

You reach the central shaft of an extinct volcano and discover/disarm 8 other Skedic who are working for Sonjia. Unfortunately Sonjia has already obtained the ring Chronos and attacks you. Although some of you take a little beating you manage to kill her just after Landros arrives on the scene, plummeting down the shaft in a frogsuit. Avenar, Ankar's son, also shows up demanding to know what is going on. You quickly school him and gather the information that Sonjia and he were going to meet someone named Fermarcus at an ancient ruin call Harkem-Viol.

Farallon manages to convince the Etan Skedic to leave the employ of Ankar and you all pack into Theoninn to go to Harkem-Viol. The maximum comfortable capacity for Theoninn, in terms of bunk space, is 24. As it stands, Landros is "guarding" Chronos and won't let anyone have it yet. The ruins of Harkem-Viol seem to belong to a race of beings about twice the size of humans. You have landed in a sort of town square near one of the glacial lagoons that dot the area around this town/ruin.