AD&D Session 77 - The Mountain Laboratory
14th of Duscar, 835 PD
In the aftermath of the failed attempt to intercept the invisible intruder at the Cinderrest Sanctum, the party was asked by the gate warden to alert the village’s few militia so they could reinforce the forge and temple. After passing on the warning, they turned back to the only remaining lead in their mithril dagger investigation: the route their mysterious, purple-eyed fey woman had taken up into the mountains. With no clear trail left in town, they sent Koro’s brother ahead to scout the upper slopes and see if any trace of her path or hideout could still be found.
15th of Duscar, 835 PD
Koro’s brother returned with a stranger in tow: a peculiar gnome who claimed to have followed the fey woman up the mountain purely out of curiosity and whim. Zefran had found them near a heavily warded entrance in the rock face, likely tied to the woman’s base of operations. With the way only a few hours’ hike away, the party set out together and eventually reached a small cavern fronted by an ornate stone door. The door was bound in magic and surrounded by several inscribed circles whose function Marcus could not identify at a glance. Experimentation revealed that each circle shifted the colours glowing across the door’s surface. After some trial and error, the group managed to discover the correct sequence, and the wards parted to let them inside.
Deeper in the tunnels, they discovered a painted likeness of Blackcloak, a notorious wizard of ill repute, confirming that the complex was tied to a powerful arcane figure. Further exploration led them into what appeared to be a mad arcanist’s laboratory: crowded with notes, devices and half-finished experiments. As Marcus sifted through the clutter, he uncovered a scroll describing something called a “mallus key”—a construct meant not to transport matter, but to create bridges for raw energy. Much of the research in the lab centred on ways to deliberately tear or punch holes in the Weave to force new, unstable magical effects into existence. Though usually inclined to preserve magical knowledge regardless of its moral shading, Marcus found himself appalled; the work recorded here struck him not merely as unethical, but as profoundly dangerous and abhorrent, hinting at a level of reckless experimentation that could threaten far more than a single hidden lair in the mountains above Cinderrest.