Grenak GoateaterDemon-skull seeker
Valen SilverpalmWandering protector
Mruno BarsBard, fugitive, public menace
Roland BlackstoneInfernal hunter
Captain Rhogar SkyscaleSkyship captain
Elyndor FaelithilChampion and arcane defenderFive-track transcript-supported reconstruction
What happened
The party explores an abandoned elven crystal facility filled with dead workers, emergency alarms, and color-coded portals. A failing dark-red portal releases five demons into a damaged clean room; the party kills them and continues investigating.
The facility refines corrupted dark-red crystals, produces an unknown green residue, and distributes energy across Sylvara. A viewing device reveals a dark-red dome covering the entire nation. Its purpose remains unknown.
The abandoned facility
The main chamber contains dead elves, flashing alarms, broken equipment, and four color-coded portals. The bodies are ordinary dead people—not undead—and the room looks like an emergency halted the work suddenly.
The party searches the debris and determines that each portal requires a matching colored gemstone to activate.
The first portal
A purple crystal opens the matching portal into a bright, damaged clean room. Furniture and records have been thrown across the area as though the evacuation became violent.
The green and blue portal glyphs flicker. Then the system fails completely.
Five demons
Five demons emerge through the failing portal system. They use fear, charm, commands, and fire while the party responds with considerably less subtle violence.
Grenak is briefly compelled to attack whoever killed one of the demons. Roland resists a mental assault, Mruno supports and heals the group, and the party destroys all five creatures.
“Get your ass back in there!”
— Mruno
The refining system
The recovered Hartwood manual allows Roland to recognize the machinery. Corrupted dark-red crystals enter the system and emerge bright red and usable. The process also produces green mist or excess energy routed through pipes and tanks.
This is not merely a mine. It is a research, processing, monitoring, and energy-distribution installation built around engineered chaos absorption.
“I’m about 75% sure this is just a chest.”
— Roland
Elyndor's visits
A blue crystal, communication device, and facility logbook are recovered near the control areas. The log shows that Elyndor visited the facility repeatedly during the previous week.
The record does not explain what he did here. It establishes only that the champion knew about the facility and had been coming often.
“Fucking elves.”
— Roland
The red dome
A magical viewing surface displays Sylvara in an unfamiliar energy spectrum. A dark-red dome encloses the entire nation.
The party cannot determine whether the dome is a shield, containment field, accumulated corruption, or some combination of them. Reactivating the machinery causes a power surge, breaks part of the viewing apparatus, and leaves the question unresolved.
What remains below
A deep shaft descends beyond sight beneath the facility. Mechanical noises travel through the complex after the party turns one of the controls, and something appears to drop into a collection area.
A green gem is recovered, but its purpose remains unknown. The party is left inside a damaged system with far more evidence than answers.
“Fucking everybody loves holes, dude.”
— The party
The shit worth remembering
Funny even without the quote
- Roland becomes seventy-five percent certain that a suspicious chest is only a chest.
- The party discusses throwing someone down an impossibly deep shaft with alarming enthusiasm.
- Roland summarizes the discovery of hidden elven crystal technology with the scholarly conclusion: 'Fucking elves.'