Udvjor Gardyl

A redoubt built in the days of Baltur's hegemony, see that page for more details. It can be found in the foothills of the Giant's Crown Mountains in the Udvjor barony of Sormark. The gardyl is located under a large rock shelf, making it very difficult to find.

Event

When the party comes near, it becomes clear strange things are going on. There is a chasm between their side and the gardyl and inside the chasm lots of, what look like huge gems with faceted sides, are sticking out of the side of the chasm, they are about five meters long on average. A few of those 'gems' are also sticking out of the ground on either side of the chasm.

A dwarf-made bridge spans the chasm, it is made of rock but ninety percent of the bridge has turned to glass, at least, it is completely see-through. A little to the side of the bridge are pillars of rock, all next to each other, perfectly hexagonal, moving up and down slowly in a sort of wave pattern.

Reb wants to have a closer look at these moving pillars; they are about forty centimeters in diameter and go up and down by about four meters, never going fully underground. The fight clambers up on one and enjoys the ride, getting a nice view of the area.

Regius decides to see if he can break off a little of one of the 'gem' rocks. When he hits a topaz-like one with his hammer, tiny cracks, like a spider's web, propagate through the stone in a split second and then their is a deafening boom as the whole thing shatters into millions of tiny pieces. Sheepishly the priest takes a few of them.

Our friends then want to cross the bridge and Regius is 'voluntold' to go first. Fortunately the glassy part of the bridge feels just like stone and easily holds everyone up. As the party crosses the bridge, a small flying thing made of metal suddenly appears. It has a spherical body with two mechanical arms and legs. It has a single eye and rudimentary wings. While most of it looks to be made of copper about an eight of it's body is wood and a smaller part seems to be stone of some kind, one of its legs seems to be made of string.

It doesn't seem to mean them harm and Harpin asks it for it's name. "No designation found, no designation found, no designation found," it answers in a high, squeaky voice that trails off. "I'm Harpin, designation found," the gnome happily replies. The creature, or whatever it is, seems happy enough to talk though its answers are often hard to understand. When asked where he's from he says that he's from around here, and he tells them he has lots of four legged friends when asked if he is alone. Just as he is answering the next question he disappears.

The party crosses the bridge and to the right the rock curves away, strange lights are coming from there. Harpin sends Lady Catherine, his cat, to investigate and looks through the familiar's eyes. There seems to be some kind of force-field around the corner. When they go there, they are greeted by a most strange sight. There is indeed a field of magical force but it changes every ten seconds or so. Sometimes it's only the color that changes but other times they are profound, the field turns to some kind of black goo that slowly drips down, then there's a field made of all kinds of geometric patterns, next the field goes through all colors of the rainbow, and so on. Now that they are close, they notice the air feels strange, like it is charged somehow, there's also a smell, like right after a lightning strike.

There is a metal box with a lever and two buttons close to the wall and a second box can be seen at the other side of the field. The text on the box is in the dwarvish alphabet; a language both Cassandra and Regius speak. It's a Balturan device so the language alone isn't enough, fortunately they are also skilled in arcane and literary arts. They learn that by casting any cantrip on the lever, it can be pulled down to disable the field temporarily. Cassandra casts a spell and pulls the lever, the field goes down. The box on the other side seems to be the exact twin of the other, and the priestess casts another cantrip and pulls the lever again, the field stays down.

Our friends move towards the Gardyl proper; a wide mine entrance can be seen and some simple stone rooms have been constructed outside of it. Time has not been kind; all that's left in the rooms is the vaguest hints of tables and chairs. It looks like the party are the first to come here in many, many centuries.

As they enter the mine they hear the sound of many creatures, looking back they see a huge swarm of creatures. Most of these were rats once but things have changes, and not for the better. Some of the rats have pustules growing on their face or body, others have wide tails, some have two heads, others six legs. They all look horrid and while most are rat sized, some have grown to the size of large dogs.

Knowing there is no fighting this horde, the party runs into the mine. There is a track laid into the floor for mine carts and as luck would have it, two are standing right there. Reb and Cassandra get into the front one, leaving the second for Regius and Harpin. They push off down the slope and Regius casts a Gust of Wind spell to slow down the oncoming throng. Something is doing strange things to magic here and it takes him some effort to cast the spell. Also, unbeknownst to him, the wild forces of magic have just created a copy of the candle in his backpack.

As the carts gain speed and they hurtle down the slope, our friends see that a blue field of energy has appeared, blocking the entire path. The spellcasters among our friends think this might be a gate or portal but they don't have much time to think about it as they careen right into it. Everything goes really quickly, there is definitely the feeling they are falling, and then, darkness.

Eventually our friends wake up on, what they later learn, is Ipanema.