Into the Keep: The Quest for the Keep of the Source Part 8 - A DragonQuest adventure for Ivi the Elf

Background

Soon after the College of Naming Incantations was formed by Magdella and her husband, Targren, Targren became enchanted by a young Elf, Araxi - a complex multiillusion created by the Black Dragon Araxis who wanted treasures owned by the new College - especially an ancient Orb of True Seeing, allowing the wielder to understand the web of actions, decisions, misunderstandings, accidents mistakes and arrogances that lead to a single moment.

In creating the Elf Araxi, a cult was created in the heart of the Namers College which Araxis uses for his purposes even today.

His is the eternal quest to attain the power of the Orb of True Seeing.

Magdella, sensing risk, worked with her allies (including the Demon Orobus) to move the site of the Namers' Keep to deep within the Wayward Forest. However as a Dragon, Araxis was able to find the keep and destroy its upper levels in his ill-fated search to find the Orb.

Over six centuries have past since the Keep of the Source was taken from its original site and re-homed in the Wayward Forest.

The Keep of the Source

The path winds its way through the Wayward Forest, and the stars shine brightly in the sky overhead on this sunny day. A valley opens up before you, and on the other side stands the ruins of a Keep. Its walls are smashed, its roof destroyed.

It is obvious to all that Pippy is bitterly disappointed. She walks with her head down, clutching her grandfather's walking stick tightly.

As you near the castle ruins, Bren, the Pixie from the Storm Giants castle, appears on the track ahead of you.

"This place you seek. It will show you what you do not expect - if you are willing to hear its stories and dig into its secrets."

The pixie disappears.

The Ruins

An ancient path leads to the ruins of the keep. You enter through a gaping hole in the wall where the rusted remains of a portcullis hang from the stonework.

Ground Room 1

The hole, big enough for a Titan to pass through, brings you to a large hall, 180' by 160'. The roof is 30' high.

Torches around the walls of the hall light as the company enters the hall. The floor is littered with old and decaying leaves and twigs, dirt and patches of fungus and grass. Rotted tapestries and paintings line the walls. A single scrawny tree stretches from near the centre of the hall towards the long smashed windows on the eastern side of the hall.

On the western wall, a magnificent staircase, 15' wide, rises to the next level.

Under the broken windows on the eastern side, a magically hidden and sealed trapdoor exists exposing a narrow smaller stairwell down, below ground-level.

When in this hall, if the character who wears the ring of memories approaches within 40' of the eastern wall, they will receive this memory:

A black dragon, huge and ferocious, smashes the stone wall and portcullis of the castle, creating a door wide and tall enough for it to fit through. It looks familiar, so similar to the black dragon spied in the wildlands to the southwest of the the Duchy, but more lithe, more youthful.

The dragon enters the hall, casting about, looking, looking but not seeing, a more youthful Magdella behind a pillar near the eastern wall. Sword drawn, and with a look of determination as if to march into the hall and singlehandedly decapitate the beast, a voice stops her. Her husband, following the dragon into the Keep, with a mage by his side. He strides in and faces the dragon, hands on hips. "She is here somewhere, Araxis, and she has the Orb - though she swears not to use it, for all of its power. Now my side of the bargain is kept. Take me to Araxi. I need the secrets he promised me!" With barely a moment's hesitation, the dragon laughs softly and without even looking down, its tail swipes at the men, sending them high into the hall, and down, landing with a hard crunch. Blood streams out on the white marble floor

A look of horror on her face, Magdella takes her sword and with the hilt taps the wall twice where there is an otherwise completely innocuous looking diamond-shape drawn in the stone. A trapdoor appears near her feet, which she opens and disappears within.

Upstairs It soon becomes apparent that anything above the hall on the ground level is destroyed by either ancient fire or heavy blow. From the landing on the first floor, through a series of holes in the floor/roof of the various levels, the remains of the Keep's roof, and the starlit open sky above it, can be seen six stories up.

Nothing of value or interest is in the tower.

The Dungeon

Level 1.

Room 1

The stairs lead down to a long corridor. There are three doors immediately visible in the corridor, two on the left, one on the right as you descend.

A woman, finely dressed in the way of mages long past, appears as if from nowhere in the corridor as the last of the company descend the staircase. Her form seems to slightly shimmer in the torchlight.

Pippy knows her: "It is Magdella."

Magdella speaks, and you hear as if the merest breeze has voice, "An age ago it seems, the treachery began, but we weren't to know." Her eyes widen. "How could we know? Could we know?" She hangs her head an on otherworldy howl emanates from somewhere inside her. "But to bring the dark one to undo us, to undo all we had accomplished? No, we could not know."

Castle Photo: Chur Tourismus