Maelshyve Expedition Field Notes (short story)/Field Notes - Part Three

You carefully open your plum velvet notebook, revealing the smooth pages of parchment within.

The page, written in Common, reads as follows:

Today is Restday, day 13 of the month Imaerasta in the year 5120.

One of the first people that I see is a Dwarven Blacksmith named Clunk, who starts to hand out mining picks. When he laments that he might not have enough, Archivist Huske reassures him that he brought enough to go around. Isienaka appears to be quietly enthusiastic, and shares the sentiment that his scholarly work doesn't usually produce such anticipation. Guarrin asks me if I've brought a spare notebook - Goodness, I may need another by the end of all this!

Zenlynn arrives holding another box of veil iron and crystal. I feel a bit foolish for not thinking of why the box is veil iron up until now, but it makes perfect sense. I suppose even the crystal sides of its construction have a practical purpose, other than to allow the objects within to be seen. I digress, the curator is holding one, presumably for artifacts we find.

We all join her in stepping through the glow of the portal, back into the camp.

Looking around, it seems much the same as when we left. The barrier has held. Huske mentions that this may take a while; There are no signs of a past battle, nor any previous structures. Everyone begins to carefully work at the stone. After much hard work, something is located. My head was down, so I think it was in a gathering of rocks to the south (I will have to refrain from digging if I am to take notes).

When I looked in the box, I saw a tarnished and dented invar buckle. Immediately Clunk said that it was Dwarven made. Archious asked if it had been absorbing energy from the surrounding area like the first artifact had done. Xanthium commented that it was possibly a buckle from one of the Dwarven legions that had witnessed the birth of sorcery. Isienaka says that this is a historic event, and gently reminds the crowd that we all should be informed if we make a discovery.

Archales shares the broken song the buckle has to impart: He was marching with a legion, beard swaying as he entered a valley. The scene flashed by in bits and in pieces before vanishing altogether for him, and was very faint. There was speculation on why that was, and if we were in the valley in the vision.

The barrier abruptly thinned, and lizards rush in to attack. Our defenders expertly put them down.

Naturally, some of the outcroppings of rock produced nothing for our troubles, but we stumble on another find to the north of the portal; the rotting piece of a leather harness. We speculate on how it has been preserved for so long before Faerinn begins to sing to it.

He exclaims that he sees a pony, which draws a few startled looks, but then he explains further: The pony is small, and he says that he is staring out over a valley before that vision ends. A new vision has him riding down a hill, toward an army of undead that is rushing at him; that one fades very abruptly.

Another verse has Faerinn's head turning quickly. He says something strange; He feels that he is side-slipping through time. I did not discern exactly how he meant it, but either he meant that he saw many images of people fighting undead, or one vision of many races before him fighting undead. I shall have to clarify that with him. In any case, he and his allies loose arrows into the sky before that one vision ends. That is the last the harness has to impart.

There is speculation that the magical instability of the area is causing the visions to break off abruptly. Some believe that it is as if the owners are flickering through time. Maybe we only view it as such from our perspective? Others believe that several the bearers of the object died wearing it, one by one.

As we further debate and speculate, the ground begins to shake, and we are attacked. I was rather unable to keep my feet most of these sorties, so I'm not certain what was attacking.

There were a lot of dry scales sliding about, and hisses in the air as the ground quaked. When the dust cleared, I crawled from behind the corpse of a wasteworm, and stared up at everyone else as they stood there, disheveled and panting for breath.

Right. Digging.

We didn't find anything else in the rock but more wasteworms after a lot of sorting, but the barrier held, and we came away richer in the artifacts we'd already found. Zenlynn said that we will take the time to strengthen the barrier soon.

Maybe we can find more here. There is only one way to find out.

You gently close your plum velvet notebook, taking care not to bend any of the pages.

Artifact actual short descriptions:

* a dented and tarnished invar buckle

* a piece of rotting leather harness