Roleplaying table top games make for great stories! The Envoys of Spark is a Dungeons and Dragons campaign created by Elyse T. Join hilarious and entertaining player characters on their voyage in an unknown world, as they try to accomplish an enigmatic mission.
The Envoys of Spark Chronicles are published every Monday! Check back for new adventures!
Check Out Part I of The Envoys of Spark
Check Out Part V of The Envoys of Spark
Hunt and Hunted
Our heroes, tired from their trek through the wilderness, not to mention their battles, decided a good night’s rest was in order. The passages beneath Miapolafa shrine would have to wait.
They set up camp outside, built a fire and chose to keep their resources and not cast any protecting magic. They restrained their prisoner, the only survivor of a bandit gang who had previously attempted to rob and kill them, and went to sleep. Regor III, Medea, Beatrice and Virgil slept quite soundly, considering the risk they were taking. Kohmai does not require sleep, as he gain energy from solar rays, and as usual, kept watch. Luckily, he heard the noise of approaching danger in the bushes a few hours later. He crept slightly towards the noise to investigate it’s source…and found a pair of feline yellow eyes starring hungrily at him.
He slowly backed away from the beast back to the camp and woke the four sleeping envoys.
“Um, there in the trees, there’s a tiger! Wake up!”
Beatrice, using the Etching of Wilderness, tried to speak to the tiger as its stalked towards the group, ready to pounce. Of course, it was hungry and desired to hunt.
“Head further down, to a campsite near town. You’ll find those we have hunted, uneaten. You can have them.” The hobbit said with diplomacy to the tiger.
Without the element of surprise, the tiger realized his chance at getting away with dinner here was a bit slim. He returned to the foliage, promising to return if he did not find the promised feast.
Beatrice had told the truth, but just in case, the group retreated to the cramped shrine and spent the rest of the night curled up within its walls. They slept with an eye open, even if the tiger did not come back.
Watch your Step
They were refreshed in the morning and ready to explore the tunnels beneath the shrine. Putting exactly 36 Solems, the coinage of this world, on the altar, they again released the mechanism that opened a secret panel in the floor.
They left their helpless prisoner behind and one by one, ventured in the dark tunnel, taking care, this time at least, of any traps waiting for explorers such as themselves. Beatrice’s clever eyes spotted a piece of flooring that seemed to hang by a thread and would give out should anyone step on it. Regor III, a toad-like lifeform that moves around using a floating mobile chair, easily passed over it, needing only his chair to recognize some sort of floor beneath him.
He soon regretted his smug decision to go on ahead, when he found himself in a wide room busy with scarabs larger than him. They seemed to be fussing near a wall, but soon found his presence interesting, and possibly delicious.
Back in the tunnel, the party did not communicate properly where exactly the false floor was and Kohmai accidentally triggered it. He used his fast reflexes to catch the edge of the pit and pull himself up as the floor gave way under his feet. Unfortunately for Regor, who was now being bitten and grabbed by giant insects, his way back to the group had been cut off.
Beatrice and Kohmai jumped across to help Regor, while Medea the Wizard and Virgil, who was not eager to try jumping over pits just yet, shot spells from a distance. Defeatin the creatures was difficult, but they of course victorious.
True Purpose
Kohmai found a table, remembering their previous trick, and placed it down over the pit to assist the magic workers. Beatrice noticed a piece of paper fall to the floor as Kohmai lifted the table. She read:
Here rests the source of Miapolafa’s Life and Power over our fortunes, may her judgement find those in need.
Beware thieves and pretenders, only trespassers with true purpose can leave here alive.
-Feln Spark
Upon close observation, they discovered that the scarabs were constructed of, and attracted to certain metals rich metals, such as Solemite. This material was rare and used to manufacture coins. If such a group of these giant insects were here, it meant large riches were hidden nearby! But what of the warning left behind by Spark? Was their purpose true enough?
A pedestal at the back of the room drew the interest of Medea. On it was an empty metal bowl, and on the ground in front of it were three symbols, a spiral, a triangle, and a vertical line crossed by two small horizontal lines.
After some arguing with Regor, the heroes agreed to add 40 Solems to the bowl. The bottom of the bowl opened immediately, and the coins were swallowed up inside the pedestal. Kohmai’s sharp hearing heard the coins fall, somewhere on the other side of the wall that had drawn the interest of the scarabs.
Virgil took a second look at the symbols on the floor, and remembered seeing the same ones back on Spark’s Island. Something was off however. He added a line through the spiral, as he had seen it on the cliffside of the beach where the group had first awakened.
The wall opened, and light pierced the dusty darkness down a short corridor, where a mountain of Solems and treasure rested peacefully. The group carefully approached the treasure, unable to believe their eyes. At the center of this treasure was a small platform on which a small red stone shone. Looking more closely, they could see a small incomprehensible yet beautiful drawing floating in the gleam of this stone. “This must be an Etching!” Beatrice exclaimed.
All that Glitters is not Solemite
She was about to ask one of the taller adventurers to reach for it, when from the mounds of Solems, three great snakes emerged. Two hissed and shook their rattles threateningly, while the largest, metallic and cold, as though made of Solemite, looked upon the envoys intensely. The hobbit used her Etching to speak to it:
“We mean no harm, we are the Envoys of Spark and we seek his Etchings”
The snake seemed happy to hear this.
“Then our duel has long been ordained. Defeat me and you will prove yourself representatives of Spark”
The area was small, and the snakes vicious. The group was bitten, poisoned and even hypnotized by the deadly reptiles. The Solemite snake seemed unbeatable; it could absorb the treasure around them and heal itself, making the treasure room it’s ideal battleground. They were almost strangled, cut and crushed to death, yet, their purpose was true, and Spark would only have put down obstacles he knew his envoys could surmount. When the snakes were finally defeated, the heroes sat and lay down in the piles of Solems, pearls and jewels, to catch their breath.
Medea, with her intuitive sense of religious practices, as a Wizard of the First Order, took a close look at the extensive drawings on the walls of the room. She deducted from this cryptic language that before them was the Etching of Riches, a dangerous source of power that none had been able to healthily possess. All who had taken the Etching of Riches could detect rich metals such as Solemite and Rhaul in within a certain distance, even the treasures of others that one should not take. Using the Etching too much caused a sickness of greed for the user, making them steal, hurt and even murder for rare metals.
For this reason, the Etching of Riches had been entrusted to the goddess of financial ventures, Miapolafa. Only her holy judgement was seen to be powerful enough to manage the power of the Etching; she would know who deserved to be blessed to mysteriously find riches, and who should not. For this reason, Spark hid his Etching here, beneath the shrine of the goddess, where only his Envoys could one day reclaim it.
“Should we take it? Maybe it would be safer here?” Medea wondered.
“You’re full of dren!” Regor said. “Let’s take it with us! A way to find riches at all times? Splendid! And of course, we will be taking all of the treasure here as well!”
“An Etching that afflicts people with malicious greed?” said Virgil. “Perhaps so powerful that it draws thieves and bandits to the area seeking the offerings of pilgrims?”
“Perhaps it isn’t safe here, then.” Beatrice concluded, “we should take it, and maybe some of the treasure, but not all of it. The goddess is watching after all?”
“Very well,” said Kohmai calmly. He approached the small platform and put his hand on the Etching. The familiar sharp pain stung his hand momentarily, and the process was completed. To the dismay of Regor, Kohmai, who didn’t have an ounce of greed or desire for material gains, now controlled the Etching of Riches.
“Nooooooooooo,” the Hynerian exclaimed, as his chance to be forever wealthy dissipated.
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