📜 Session Overview

Beneath Hearthglass, the party gathered themselves after surviving the split ambush, battered but alive. The strange burrowing creatures they had slain carried faint crystalline growths — another sign that the corruption below the city was not limited to the malformed drider. Whatever waited deeper had layers of protection, and each one felt more deliberate than the last.

Following the small blue-lit drone, the party found a vast shaft descending into darkness. Its walls were lined with leyline crystals that clung to touch and pulled at the mind, offering power at a cost. With rope, a featherfall potion, and the help of their dragons, the group made the dangerous descent — slipping past jagged crystal and perfectly bored circular tunnels before landing in an underground pool far below.

There, hidden beneath the mines, they discovered a forgotten stone city. Its streets were silent, its buildings abandoned, and its people gone. In their place moved small crystalline figures, gnome-like in shape, with dark glassy bodies and pointed limbs. They did not attack. They only waved, watched, and wandered through a city marked by repeating eight-foot holes carved through streets, walls, and buildings with unsettling precision.

At the heart of the city stood a cathedral-like structure marked with the image of a great eye. Inside, the party found the remnants of an older faith: sun symbols buried beneath newer carvings of the eye, memorial offerings left in alcoves, and signs that the place was somehow both sacred and profaned. Agelaius Phoeniceus took rubbings of the strange markings, and Sinora recognized the script as Gnomish, tying the lost city to the small forms that now wandered its streets.

The temple also revealed the dangers of greed and curiosity. In a lower chamber filled with scrolls and locked chests, Warwick Willows sensed magic humming through the room — only to discover that the chests were not treasures at all, but mana-draining mimics. When one clamped onto Agelaius Phoeniceus, the party fought to force it away, eventually shoving the creature into one of the circular holes and sending it tumbling into the dark. From beyond that same darkness, faint hushling screams echoed — a warning that the city's horrors were not done stirring.

With a tome recovered, strange items taken, and more questions than answers, the party pressed on. Then Broj's eyes turned gold once more. The presence within him, known now as Orchestra, seemed to guide him across the abandoned city as he whispered of a brother. The blue drone led the way as well, drawing them toward another great circular tunnel and deeper into the truth beneath Hearthglass.

The final descent brought them into a massive crystalline chamber where their dragons caught them from freefall and carried them down to a platform before an impossible sight. A vast cluster of small hushling forms lay curled around a trapped beholder-like horror — its body fused into crystal, its mouth stretched into the gaunt shape of the hushlings, and its enormous central eye glowing the same golden yellow as Broj's.

In that moment, the purpose of the journey became clear. The drider had been a guardian. The burrowing monsters had been another defense. The ruined city, the Gnomish script, the eye carved over the sun, the hushlings, and Broj's golden-eyed visitor all pointed to the same buried truth. Axioma had drawn the party here because this creature was connected to Orchestra, to Broj, and to the nightmare spreading beneath Hearthglass.

⚔️ Key Events

• Short Rest and Salvage: After the ambush, the party rested and Aedric Vale harvested two curthic claw blades from the slain creatures, noting the small crystalline growths along their spines — a sign of corruption, though far less entrenched than what had claimed the drider.
• The Leyline Shaft: The blue drone disappears down a 20-foot-wide shaft stretching hundreds of feet into darkness. Its walls are lined with leyline crystals that adhere to touch, draining mana at contact. Aedric Vale confirms this when he deliberately touches one — gaining a charge but feeling something purposefully try to break through the wall of his mind.
• The Descent: Using a featherfall potion from Agelaius Phoeniceus, a guide rope, and Warwick Willows' darkvision to navigate, the party makes the treacherous descent — their dragons carrying those who need it — and lands in an underground pool at the base of the shaft.
• The Underground City: Beyond a carved stone archway, a forgotten cobblestone city stretches further than most of the party can see. Roofless multi-story buildings, stone tables, and empty streets fill a vast cavern, utterly silent except for the tinking footsteps of small crystalline gnome-like automatons that wave at the party and wander on without aggression.
• The Eye Cathedral: Aedric Vale scouts ahead on Nathira and locates a massive cathedral-like structure at the city's heart, marked by the same carved eye symbol found in Hearthglass above. Three buildings are found filled with rows of the crystalline gnome automatons — standing perfectly still, like soldiers waiting for a command that never came.
• A Faith Buried: Inside the cathedral, the party discovers sun symbols beneath the eye carvings — an older faith overwritten. Memorial alcoves line the walls with centuries-old offerings of food, coins, rings, and amulets. Aedric Vale's divine sense detects ground that is both consecrated and desecrated, an impossibility that speaks to the violence of whatever replaced the original faith here.
• Gnomish Script: Sinora recognizes the script carved throughout the city as Gnomish, connecting the lost civilization to the crystalline automatons still wandering its streets.
• The Mana-Draining Mimics: In a lower chamber, Warwick Willows detects magical vibrations from a row of locked chests — but they are mimics designed to drain mana rather than deal physical damage. One clamps onto Agelaius Phoeniceus and the party wrestles it loose, ultimately shoving the creature into one of the circular holes. Hushling screams echo back from the darkness below.
• The Offering Taken: Despite warnings from both Sorina and Sinora to leave the memorial offerings undisturbed, Warwick Willows pockets a vibrating magical ring from one of the alcoves.
• Orchestra Speaks of a Brother: Broj's eyes go gold once more and the layered entity within him — Orchestra — begins guiding him through the city as the drone leads them toward another shaft. The word it speaks is unmistakable: a brother waits below.
• The Final Reveal: Dragons catch the party mid-fall in a vast crystalline chamber below. At its center, surrounded by curled hushlings, sits a trapped beholder-like horror — its body fused into crystal, its form warped into the same jaw-split shape as the hushlings, its enormous central eye glowing the same golden yellow as Broj's. Axioma drew the party here for exactly this.

🗡️ Combat Encounters

👥 NPCs Encountered

🔍 Important Discoveries

💰 Loot & Rewards

• Curthic Claw Blades (x2): Harvested by Aedric Vale from the slain curthic creatures before the descent. Large, serrated blades with small crystalline protrusions growing from the spines. Potential crafting materials for Zar'keth.
• Recovered Tome: Retrieved from the cathedral's lower chamber during the exploration. Contents unknown.
• Vibrating Ring: Pocketed by Warwick Willows from the memorial alcoves despite explicit warnings. The ring was one of several offerings still emitting a magical hum. Nature and effects unknown.
• Gnomish Rubbings: Agelaius Phoeniceus took rubbings of the carved script and markings throughout the cathedral. The script has been identified as Gnomish and may reveal lore about the city and its history.
• Leyline Charge (temporary): Aedric Vale briefly gained a mana charge from contact with a leyline crystal. The crystals in the shaft can provide power, but the psychic cost and adhesion risk make them dangerous.

✨ Character Moments

🖼️ Session Images

🎭 Looking Ahead