Gorlen Blackhammer - Journal Entry #402
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Gorlen Blackhammer – Journal Entry, #402
Ahh the sun is starting to go down, and things are starting to calm a bit, I shut down the shop early today to take in the peace and quiet, and to update my journal. A few days ago, I went to visit Kheg Moldur and met an interesting dwarven explorer, by the name of Urlan Venth, who had travelled from the other side of the world. He said he had just gotten back from an interesting Dwarven cluster of Mountains in the Ashrock peaks. He captured my interest as he was carrying more than a few things on him, that was constructed of exotic materials, so I began working Urlan for information, it didn’t come easy and required several rounds of Jamas lubrication. During those conversations he spoke of Magahm Hold, in the Ashrock peaks and how they have the largest concentration of Dwarven Blackrock metal he has ever seen. Immediately I had decided that I needed to go visit this new continent, to explore, alas acquiring the location of the Hold proved difficult, eventually Urlan provided it but can you trust the directions of a very drunk Dwarven Explorer, I guess I was going to find out the hard way.
The next morning, I do a bit of scrying of the area, and potential safe teleport landing zones, but something goes haywire, as I cast teleport and kicked up the power a bit to ensure a successful arrival, but then in that split second before rematerializing it felt like my teleport suddenly pulled me a different direction, almost as though I was pushed from my targeted destination, and I landed far Northeast of the Ashrock Peaks. The teleport and the area I will eventually come to discover had put me farther North than I had imagined. Eventually, I will come to find out I was near The Lost Coast, on the Sea of Ice. Urlan left out some rather specific details about this place, such as the various forms of divination, teleportation, and dimensional magics behave seemingly random at times. So I scouted the area, and for the moment it looked safe enough, so I proceeded to setup camp and tap into my Managanger DNA to get my timing and synchronization reset with the magic and weave of this continent, I can’t be just be tossed all over the place, every time I go and teleport. After about 2 hours, I once again could feel this weave, and its magic in harmony and balance with my connection.
Now, I needed to get a better lay of the land, so Gorlen shape changed into an eagle and took flight to explore the area, it took the better part of a 2 weeks, but I was able to map out a small section, the Lost Coast, on this continent. I did attract a few random encounters, as I flew to close to a Volcano, and a Red Dragon by the name of Grylrasdam took it upon himself to breath on me, after the eagle shrugged it off and looked back at him, the Grylrasdam had decided that is probably someone he should leave alone, and broke flight path back to his Volcano. The next random encounter was just some Gnolls trying to shoot me down with bows for dinner, largely ignored them. Lastly, I found a Goblin Warlock riding a Huge Dragonfly, along with 20 of his buddies that was interesting to me because you don’t see that every day. I was just going to ignore them as many of their attacks weren’t even really of any concern to me. But then the Warlock thru a 10e spell at me that I never saw before, it had a chaining affect but recursively looped back on the single target until it killed you or ran out of hops. Gorlen was now pleasantly surprised, he almost just ate the spell on the spot, but no it was a new spell, give the Warlock his due, let’s see this to the end, and Gorlen examined and admired the spell thru the entire duration. Then the eagle turned around and telepathically told the Warlock, my turn, Time Stopping for 2,000 feet in all directions, during that time Gorlen ripped any useful knowledge from the Goblin’s mind, read his spell book, examined his magic items, and even left him a few new scrolls behind for the Goblin’s reward. Eventually they will come out of the timestop, in a few hours with a splitting headache, a few new spells, but largely intact otherwise.
During my mapping of the area, I spotted a city named Esagend, what caught my attention was it had two things a Library, and a Spelljamming port. What made it even more interesting was Esagend was under siege. Over the two weeks of exploring and mapping the Lost Coast I had overheard several caravans, and various folk talk about the War going on between the Autaria Dynasty, and the Duiral Kingdom. The city of Esagend fell within the Autaria Dynasty as did much of the Lost Coast, as to the reasons for the siege or the war, apparently, it’s been going on for decades. Now I really never had much taste for the politics of conflict between two imperial nation states, but on my flight into the city of Esagend I did notice much of the Duiral Kingdom seemed comprised of Drow leadership, monstrous humanoids, a few odd ball abyssals, and some Giant tribe mercenaries. Esagend, in the Lost Coast, within the Autaris Dynasty seemed mostly comprised of your standard human, elf, dwarf, halfling, and goliath races.
As I made my flights descent to the steps of the library, dodging various siege ammunition, and meteor swarms. I come to see much of the city already under siege, with the local wizards returning volley to the foreign army, across the city there are pockets of fighting, and smoke billowing from different locations across Esagend. Gorlen largely unconcerned about having landed in a war zone, hops up the steps leading to the entrance of the library as though he has an extra spring in his step today. As Gorlen approach the entrance it reads the “Library of Arcanum” cracking open the huge double doors, he is met by a contingent of librarians who seem to be ready to defend the library, in case the war spills over into their halls. The librarians seem taken back, exchanging glances at one another as a portly big nosed gnome walks thru the door. Gorlen scoffs I could be a threat, I’m imposing! Put your guard up. The head librarian looks at the Gnome and frowns, my name is Ista and I am head librarian here, “Do you mean us or the library harm”. Gorlen almost looked insulted again, “I would never do harm to a library. But that doesn’t mean I couldn’t be a threat, as he attempts to suck in his already prominent belly”. A few of the librarians try not to giggle at the Gnome, and Gorlen pretends not to notice.
Ista lowers her staff, well then why are you hear Gnome, the city has a few pressing matters right now with the invading army that takes precedence over providing library services. And before Ista can finish voicing her sentences, Gorlens appears behind them as he pulls off his first book from one of the library shelves. Gorlen says, “Not to worry, I’m pretty self-sufficient I’ll figure it out”, grabbing a few more books off the shelves. The librarians are looking around at one another confused as if this wasn’t really happening and at this moment. Ista finally snaps out of her confusion and smacks her staff to the floor we can’t deal with that now, let’s leave him be we have to finish the protective enchantments upon the library. The librarians begin their collaborative casting, but no more than 4-6 seconds later the rhythm of the casting is broken as the Gnome comes pushing a book cart, stacked high with books, across the main hall floor, sqeek, sqeek, sqeek, from the carts bent wheel. Now you can start to see each of the librarians dumb founded by how he collected so many books so quickly, and Ista’s anger building as being interrupted yet again as they are trying to fortify their library. Gorlen continues to push the squeeky cart across the main library room, mumbling something about them needing to hide their rarer books more carefully, the runed secret door was really easy to find. Ista casts a glare at Gorlen, and says “Are you quite done, we really need to throw up the libraries protective magics”, Gorlen’s turns…”Well excuse a gnome, for getting a few books in a library, I can see I’m not wanted here, I’ll be on the roof reading these books, I hope you finish your spell, its simple enough you should manage”. Ista grows angrier but refocuses the librarians to the task at hand.
Gorlen short of breath, hauling the book cart to the roof, finally finds a nice spot to watch the siege and to do some reading. He pulls out his comfy chair from his portable mansion and taps a keg and begins reading. For the first 30 minutes are so, Gorlen flips thru a lengthy summary behind the history of the tribulations the Lost Coast has seen over the last five thousand years. The next 30 minutes, he covers mostly geographic locations, factions and societies, political and socioeconomic issues of the continent. After about an hour a field of magic goes up around the library, strengthen the stone, the windows, and reenforcing the entrances. Being tied to the weave, Gorlen sees the magic take effect, takes a slug of his beer, drops a bookmark in his book. Gorlen mumbles and stands up… “That isn’t going to hold back much”, reaching into the active magics itself, he seems to almost rewire the spell, patching it in spots, and reenforcing it in others. After a few rounds, he finishes his changes, and ties off the spell. Then notices a trebuchet munition is on a trajectory to the library, “Ohh I haven’t had nearly enough time in this library yet”, Gorlen gently spins up his megakinesis and tosses it back at the trebuchet that launched it, only fair to send it home.
Plopping back down into his chair, taking a healthy drink, he returns to his reading, over the next hour or so, all sorts of various siege munitions, and spells seem to get reflected back upon the invading army that come even within a 2 block radius of the library. And then a series of pops appear in the sky over the library, Gorlen not really paying them much mind, casually looks up and sees 3 drow archmages. Gorlen says….“Hey do any of you guys know Sorvani? Powermaster of V’Ral? He’s a Drow, thought you guys all knew one another”. The leader speaks down to Gorlen, “Gnome, my name is Sorndax, I am the head Archmage of this army, relinquish the library and the town or be destroyed.”. Gorlen says … “So you don’t know Sorvani, ohh well”. Gorlen gets up again, drops a bookmark in the book titled Spatiomancy, gets out of his comfy chair, completely ignoring the Drow, and walks over to the side of the library… zip…ahhhh, taking a whiz off the side of the library roof. Gorlen spins around … “Ok now I’m ready, what is it you want?”, Sorndax. “Gnome, I command you relinquish the library”. Gorlen says. “Well I can’t do that, I haven’t finished reading everything new I have found in this library, besides what is your plans with the library.” Sorndax…” That is none of your concern, Gnome”, and then he sees the three Drow begin casting, dropping a series of meteor swarms, disintegrates, and time stops upon Gorlen.
With seemingly blinding speed, the Gnomes manages to throw up a protective sphere around the books before the spells land, none of the spells affecting the Gnome, most being absorbed, consumed, or just simply ignored.
Gorlen … glances at the books on his book cart, breath’s a sigh of relief none of the books were harmed, then he notices his comfy chair had gotten burnt in the spell exchange. Gorlen looks up to the Drow, angrily brow furled… “First as Archmages you should know better than to burn books, Second never mess with a Gnomes reading chair.”, I will give you one last chance to leave me be, or I may have to do something about it. The Drow scoff in arrogance…releasing another barrage of magics upon the Gnome, smoke and ash everywhere the Gnome standing in the center of it, seeing his chair reduced to ash, and a floating protective energy field around the book cart still intact, he turns his attention to the Drow.
As the smoke begins to dissipate, and the Gnome comes into view, his anger is clearly shown upon his face, but another trait has emerged, piercing power blue eyes seem to be cutting thru the smoke as the leader Drow Archmage lock eyes with Gorlen, and the Gnome lets loose a thunderous snap imploding the Drow Archmage molecules all across the Manaverse. Turning his gaze to the remaining Archmages, they decide to activate their contingencies and flee.
Gorlen grumbles, regenerating his chair from ash, …” Dammit, son of a bitch, asshole disintegrated my chair”. After a few moments, the chair is rebuilt and Gorlen drops down into it, but unfortunately Gorlen mumbles something about the….”Ass groove being all wrong, and having to break the chair back in”
After a few hours, Gorlen is wrapping up a book titled “Cronourgy”, and the General of the invading army, interrupts him with a woosh, appearing on the roof top, with his guards. “The city is mine, surrender the library Gnome”. Gorlen looks up at this female Drow general and says “Ohh well when you put it that way! No, I don’t think so, your Head Drow Archmage, who is no longer with you by the way really pissed me off, I was going to stay neutral for the most part in this war, glean what knowledge from this library I could, and be on my way. But now I’m thinking I may stay”. Gorlen quickly followed-up…”Ohh and if you’re thinking about attacking me, you know what I did to the Head Archmage last time for destroying my chair, if my keg of Jamas gets destroyed, I will find a very deep void to drop you in.”
The Drow Female General, Mizzrym, speaks, “Gnome, how can you possibly win, look at my army”, Gorlen responds. “I’ve seen it, seen larger, now if you keep interrupting me I’m going to have to do something about that, don’t care about your army… truth be told I’m new to this town, not super attached, but you and your Archmages were dicks, and destroyed my chair, so now I think I may take a keen interest in this town.”
Mizzrym, says enough and attacks slicing into Gorlen with a pair of black longswords, causing the Gnome to take damage, Gorlen looking a tad surprised, but seemingly not worried. The bodyguards follow up attacking the Gnome only to find many layers of stone skins blocking their attacks. Gorlen looks to his wounds, as they begin closing, confusing Mizzrym as she looks at her longswords. The Gnome then smiles, as time begins slow almost to a stop across the city, and several huge portals begin dumping massive elementals upon the invading army across the city. As Mizzrym tries to fight the time dilation field, she can only help but move in slow motion watching her army get overwhelmed by the sheer number of elementals being dumped from the inner planes upon the Drow’s Army. With a wave of the Gnomes right hand, the bodyguards of the general shimmer from the roof top, only to find themselves materializing within Dregnoth’s Under Laboratory. And finally, the Gnome pulls from his pocket a trinket he traded an Alchemist in V’Ral for a box of spellbreakers. A figurine of intellect devouring springs to life from Gorlen’s hand making its way into Mizzryms body and claiming it as a new host.
Gorlen says…”Devourer collect the hosts mind and memories, and retrieve any critical knowledge of their home city, magical lore, and their empires capabilities. Ohh and devourer have fun taking your new Drow suit for a spin.” Gorlen glances around … “I still have some reading to do.”
Over the next few hours, the invading army is wiped clean from Esagend, the elemental swarms returned back to their planes, and the Mizzrym controlled Drow is on her way back to their home city of Yuethindrynn as a new found spy.
For the next few months, Gorlen would continue to read everything he could get his hands on in the library, occasionally the librarians would check in on him as he would return to the library to fill his book cart, occasionally even adding new books to the library shelves. Eventually, he would emerge from the library, to find a city being rebuilt, giving a big Gnome yawn, he says …. “Now if I remember, wasn’t there supposed to be a Spelljamming port this way”, and he heads west towards the docks.
