Exploring the Halls of Arden Vul:Talia:journal

Rumors

• The caverns under Arden Vul produced a large supply of a wondrous orange mineral that proved to have very many arcane uses. Sadly, the mines ran dry, causing the city to be abandoned.'
• "I overheard an adventurer whispering about Arden Vul. She was saying 'You know the Fox? that master thief from Narsileon? She made a big score in Arden Vul. I got word on how to follow her path to the rest of the unplundered tombs, since she always paints these little blue fox-pictures on the walls to mark the route. All you gotta do is follow the blue pictures!'"
• " heard of an adventurer newly returned from Arden Vul collapsing in the streets, her last words: 'Beware the Pyramid! The Eyes! The Eyes! They were everywhere ... and then, fire, lightning and swirling lights'. Ominous stuff.

The Twelve Labors of Arden, known to any Archontean citizen (which could include the Thorcinga among you)

• First Labor (The Owlbears of Mount Juventus): In a series of volcanic passages on the dormant volcano, Mount Juventus (on Mithruin), a pack of owlbears began threatening imperial goblin miners. Arden was sent with a small unit to investigate. Although her comrades were slain, she triumphed by killing all the owlbears.
• Second Labor (The Troll of Pelousia): A band of trolls was menacing settlements near Arcturos. The band was led by a specimen of unusual size and intelligence. Playing on the troll’s greed and confidence, Arden agreed to a bargain: they would fight a duel. If Arden lost and lived, she would serve the trolls for a decade; if Arden lost and was killed, they would eat her. If she could dismember the chieftain, the band would depart for greener pastures. Arden won, and the trolls left.
• Third Labor (The Laughing Lord of the Grain Islands): A troupe of ogre magi appeared in the Grain Islands, setting themselves up as rural lords in a beautiful manor house. From this fortress they enslaved the local halfling farmers and disrupted food shipments to Mithruin. After an inconclusive fight with the charmed servants of the ogre magi, Arden brazenly invited herself to dinner with the Laughing Lord; at dinner she pretended to drink too much wine, while the Laughing Lord did drink too much wine. Arden told the lord of a great treasure she held in a special metal box; when the laughing lord looked into it, she pushed him in and sealed it with wax. The other ogre magi fled, and Arden tossed the sealed box into the ocean.
• Fourth Labor (The Three Berserkers of Westholm): The emperor sent an envoy to Westholm in Borealios to negotiate tribute from local Wiskin chieftains. While visiting the hall of Odd Skallason, a local jarl, the envoy was slain and crucified. Arden and Vul arrived to seek vengeance without provoking a war. She entered the hall and engaged the men of Jarl Odd in a series of tests: a drinking bout on one day, a strength feat on the next, a running race on the third. On the fourth day a trio of Wiskin berserkers arrived, as if by chance, and after a few ales insulted Arden and sought her death. She killed them all, and Odd submitted, sending his bear-claw necklace to the emperor in tribute.
• Fifth Labor (The Greedy Jarl): While in Borealios to accomplish the Fourth Labor, Arden was visited by other Wiskin chieftains, who complained about a family of frost giants that was claiming lordship over a neighboring valley. The giants were capturing and eating those who refused to submit. Arden and Vul journeyed to the jarl’s hall, stormed it, and decapitated the jarl.
• Sixth Labor (The Lost Legion): The 5th kataphracti rode out to investigate reports of unrest. Riding through a canyon on Irthuin they were met at its mouth by a Thorcin thane, Hadric Lawfinder. Hadric consulted with the polemarch for a few moments before stabbing him to death. The rest of the column was ambushed from above, and 90% of the legion slaughtered. Hadric took the phlamoulon as his trophy. Arden and Vul were sent to scout the scene before more troops were sent. The pair investigated many Thorcin villages until they tracked down Hadric at a longhouse built deep in the woods next to a shrine to Fenth. There they slew Hadric and some priests of Fenth and recovered the phlamoulon. The heroes were aided by one of the surviving members of the 5th kataphracti, the tulwar-wielding Lucius Minux.
• Seventh Labor (The River God): Vul discovered a magically-active area atop and within an enormous cliff, from which poured a violent waterfall. Arden and Vul scaled the cliff and investigated the site. Vul attempted to construct a tower by the river, but the river kept shifting location and destroying his work. The pair determined that a water elemental inhabited the lower reaches of the river. They banished it and seized the enchanted giant triton shell that had kept it imprisoned in this location.
• Eighth Labor (The Hidden Priest): A village headman registered a complaint with the local chartoularios, claiming that the local priest of Osiris was an impostor; he also complained that exactions from all the local temples had skyrocketed, and without explanation. Imperial investigators found nothing amiss, and the regional council of priests found the new exactions and tithes to be appropriate. The headman turned up dead a month later. His daughter sought out Arden, who arrived with Vul to investigate. Vul journeyed to the temple of Osiris, where he observed a suspiciously high level of tithe collection; he also discovered many messengers traveling to the temple of Isis. Arden adopted the guise of a pilgrim and spent a fortnight begging for Isis. Eventually the pair discovered that a powerful priestess of Jael was impersonating the priestess of Isis, and that her minions had also replaced the priests of other local temples. Arden located the hidden shrine to Jael, and destroyed it, thus ending the illusion and permitting a return to proper religious harmony. Arden presented the half- moon torc of the priestess of Jael to the chartoularios.
• Ninth Labor (Singing the Dead to Sleep): At the new settlement of Magnus Ager, the dead refused to remain in their graves and crypts. Citizens reported eerie music in the night, with reports of walking dead terrorizing and even attacking the living. Arden and Vul arrived, with their comrade Ristus, a cleric of Thoth. Despite their efforts, which involved re-killing a number of undead, the problem didn’t end. Finally, Arden realized that the music was controlling the dead. The trio tracked the music to the crypt of a Thorcin scop. The trio defeated the scop after Arden was able to challenge him to a musical duel. Once placated, the scop retired and the hauntings ceased.
• Tenth Labor (The Fallen Mage): Apollonius of Archontos, the primus magus of the Order of Thoth, devised a necromantic ritual to preserve himself as a lich. He filled his town house in Archontos with traps, slew his servants and apprentices and raised them as undead, and prepared to spend millennia seeking information and power. The particular process for becoming a lich that he pioneered, however, required that he spend 50% of his time in hibernation; he was woken periodically by the activation of certain talismans that his undead servants preserved. A century after disappearing into lichdom (in his own demi-plane), Apollonius began appearing in the capital city, taking valuable tomes and magical artifacts, striking down even the most powerful nobles if they tried to resist. The emperor could not tolerate this blatant thievery, especially from one of the empire’s great archmages. Arden and Vul were tasked with putting the theft and violence to a halt. The heroes visited Apollonius’s town house, cleared it of minions, and journeyed to his demi-plane. There they confronted Apollonius. After defeating various traps and minions, Apollonius negotiated with the heroes, promising to cease his predations in Archontos in return for being left alone. He provided a talisman with his sigil, a heron eating a fish, to seal the bargain. Arden and Vul presented the talisman to the emperor.
• Eleventh Labor (The Dragon’s Egg): Seeing the new settlement at Arden Vul as a threat, an ancient red dragon and its partner began to attack the Archontean settlers there. Arden and Vul were sent to handle the situation. They located the dragon’s lair atop a crag in the mountains west of Arden Vul. After several skirmishes involving magic, fire, and physical combat, the pair decided to force the dragons into compliance by stealing their eggs through stealth. An invisible Arden scaled the heights and stole three eggs. Vul then dictated terms to the dragons: they would cease attacking Archontean settlements or their offspring would be slain. If the parents agreed, the offspring would be raised within the Empire. When the parents agreed, Arden and Vul brought two of the eggs to the Emperor in Archontos. The third egg disappeared.
• Twelfth Labor (Unknown): At the height of her fame, Arden disappeared along with her partner Vul. Imperial legend has it that she sleeps across the centuries in preparation for her twelfth and final labor. When the Empire needs them both, Arden and Vul will awaken to complete their final task. As a result, there is no fixed interpretation of the twelfth labor, with most accounts simply leaving it ‘empty’.

Obelisk Inscriptions

• The bands of images are split into two themes. For the first 8' of the obelisk's 35', the images are largely of humans interacting with large lizards, of humans riding on the lizards, of humans putting various creatures to the sword, and such things of empire, expansion, and conquest. Above the 8' mark, the images are all of a singular theme: the sun. The sun shining above various Archontean cities, the sun as it rises over an ocean, the sun over armies, and forests, and, near the upper echelons of the obelisk, the sun in its solitary glory.
• The Beacon shall be revealed to those who bring midday life to the Sun, the Moon and the Stars.

Broken Bone

• from stone seat South 10 West 50 South 10

Pyramid Steps

• an ibis-headed god pointing with both arms at a robed human descending a staircase
• an ibis-headed god pointing his left arm at a bowing human, who is presenting the god with a plate of scrolls and coins
• an ibis-headed god spewing forth a long scroll inscribed with abstracted writing into the hands of grateful humans
• a baboon squatting with an open book on its thighs, holding a pen in its paw, gazing at a group of humans; there's a feather between the baboon and the people

Pyramid Graffiti

• Set is waiting and watching
• Gregor was brave, but the dust took him
• The goblins hate the beastmen more than we do
• I hate halflings!
• We followed the arrogant, red-armored fools into the great temple of Thoth, but then we lost them ... and half our party.
• A crude map drawn on the wall which depicts a large room, a corridor leading off to the right halfway into the room, two corridors leading up and down off of the end of the first corridor which each turn to the right of the drawing and then go down and up, respectively, almost making a large rectangle, but they don't connect. At the intersection of corridors is an arrow and the scrawled words 'look here', in Archontean. In Thorcin, next to the Archontean words, is a word he knows - 'spikes!' - written in a different hand.
• Fuckin halflings!
• KK is watching at all times! Don’t trust the talking puppets!
• Halflings saved my bacon! They're the best!!!
• Wulf - Wait for me in the pyramid room. If you don’t see me, I will have ascended. -Edgar
• I'm gonna kill all of those dog-headed bastards -Hrothgar
• One of the dog troopers warned us not to seek an audience with his mistress, the powerful sorceress Dayno. Why not?
• Harold Good-Ears was here!
• A faded and primitive sketch of a biped with huge thighs and an amphibian head. An arrow points to its eye, with the caption 'danger' in Mithric
• Plumthorn Rules these Halls! Obey Him!
• The Darlings claim this level! All the treasure is ours! So long, suckers!
• We shall return. The secrets of the Paleologue will not remain hidden. Look to Gog for directions.
• Don't meet with Dayknow he said. Gods damn, why didn't we listen?
• You survived! Well done. Hama salutes you.

Copper Torc (inscription in Mithric)

• Lo, the incantation to Vul! / Empty the mind, open the heart, fill the soul /
• Empty the soul, open the mind, fill the heart / Empty the heart, open the soul, fill the mind​

Destroyed Doorway, neighborhood north of the eastern plaza (inscription in Mithric)

• The Old Ones travelled here [...] mighty sky- chariot [...] fire and destruction [...] look [...] Beacon [...] answers.

Old Coins

• Mithric phrases 'Imperator Archontii regendum est' and 'Auctoritas est Potestas', which when spoken are familiar to any Archontean as imperial phrases: "the Archontean Emperor shall rule" and "Authority is power".