Dramatis Personae
- Tori, mixed-heritage Shamaness from Gal City
- Kildun Graax, Hyperborean Necromancer from the City-State of Khromarium
- Tyrm, Oonish (androgynous clone) Warlock from the City-State of Khromarium
- Saya'da ("Say'"), Yakut Berserker from the Plains of Leng
- Fiadhan, Keltic Druid local to the Bryn Celli region
Noon Wolves Attack!
Sky, the 13th of Sagittarius, 582. 4:00 PM. Clear to partly cloudy, 19 degrees F.
The noon wolves arrived without warning.
The party had been exploring the ruined market district when five of the strange, hairless beasts entered from the west, their milky-white eyes turning from side to side as they searched the ruins. The wolves were unaware of the adventurers, however, and this gave the party a brief opportunity to act before the creatures realized they were there.
Tori sprinted toward Tyrm, shouting, “Wolves incoming, from the west!”
Tyrm moved into position and loosed two arrows at the approaching pack, but both shots flew wide. Fiadhan also took up a position, preparing herself to cast a spell when the wolves came within range. Say’, irritated at yet another interruption to her exploration, stepped outside the ruined smithy for a better view. She drew her axe and charged toward the beasts.
Kildun saw her pass and drew his sling, keeping it ready while he continued assisting Khronus with his work. The chronomancer merely mumbled an acknowledgment and continued taking his measurements. The mercenaries meanwhile formed a shield wall, preparing to give the others cover if necessary.
The wolves won the initiative when the battle properly began. Moving together as a pack, they advanced upon Say’, the nearest target, but stopped just short of reaching her. They were poised to surround her and attack, if she remained where she was.
Fiadhan decided against casting and instead loosed an arrow. It overshot its target and struck the ground beyond one of the wolves. The mercenaries advanced, then re-formed their shield wall.
Tori stepped forward and cast Entangle. Vines and vegetation burst into life around the wolves, ensnaring four of the five. The fifth resisted the spell and remained mobile, though it could move only at half speed within the affected area.
Kildun launched a sling bullet at the remaining free wolf, but missed.
Say’ saw the spell take effect and glanced toward Tori, giving her a brief nod. She repositioned herself near the mercenaries and called out to the mobile wolf, attempting to draw its attention.
Tyrm moved closer and loosed two more arrows, but both missed.
The remaining mobile wolf broke away from the entangling vegetation and reached Say’. It attacked with claws and teeth, and its bite struck with terrible force. Say’ absorbed the blow, resisting the strange time-bound effect that accompanied it. Whatever the wolf attempted to do to her, she resisted.
Fiadhan answered with two arrows, and both found their mark. The hairless wolf recoiled in shock, but remained on its feet. Tori loosed another arrow and struck it as well. The creature was now badly wounded, whimpering in pain.
Kildun launched another bullet and missed. Tyrm closed the distance, switching to his sword as he prepared to enter the melee.
The mercenaries surrounded the wounded wolf and attacked from several directions with their spears. Their combined assault left little doubt about the outcome. Say’ struck as well, her sword finding its mark.
The wolf collapsed.
The remaining four were still caught within the Entangle spell and presented easy targets. Arrows and sling bullets quickly finished them.
When the fighting was over, the party recovered what ammunition they could and dragged the dead wolves away from the immediate area. Khronus continued his measurements, apparently unconcerned by the interruption, and the party resumed its exploration while he worked.
Fiadhan examined the strange creatures more closely. Their eyes were milky white, and she realized that they were blind. Somehow, however, they had been able to sense the party despite their blindness.
Say’ removed one of the canine fangs from the wolf she had fought and carried it to Khronus. She showed him the fang and described the strange effect that had accompanied the wolf's bite.
Only then did the chronomancer offer a warning. The hairless wolves were known to him. Their claws and bites carried a dangerous time-freezing effect. The party was not particularly pleased that he had waited until after the battle to mention this.
Khronus seemed oblivious to the complaints.
Say’ attempted to conceal the severity of her wound, but Tori had been watching her closely. She recognized that the berserker was in considerable pain and quietly offered her healing. Say’ tried to brush her off, but Tori insisted.
The two stepped aside into a private space, where Tori used her shamanic healing abilities to partially mend the bite.
Fiadhan had noticed them leave and approached, but quickly recognized Say’s discomfort at accepting aid. Instead of pressing the matter, she simply told her, “You’re the toughest one here. You have to be in tip-top shape.”
Say’ smiled ever so slightly. “I am kind of a badass.”
Her wound still pained her, but the exchange seemed to satisfy her. When Tori finished, Say’ gave her the only acknowledgment she was inclined to offer. “Thanks.” Then she walked away.
While the others recovered, Tyrm and the mercenaries began piling rubble into defensive barriers. Kildun continued assisting Khronus and asked whether he might take one of the wolves for later study. Khronus said that he could, though he doubted Kildun would find anything particularly interesting. Kildun decided to leave the corpse where it was.
The ghostly images that had appeared throughout the market district continued to flicker in and out of existence, seemingly unaffected by the battle. Say’ examined the wolves more closely but found nothing unusual beyond their lack of fur and their milky-white eyes. Beneath the missing hair, they possessed the same mass and bulk as ordinary wolves.
Tori and Fiadhan spoke briefly about their respective knowledge of healing.
At last, after another half hour, Khronus finished his measurements and began packing his equipment. He instructed Kildun to tell the others to prepare to move.
The timing was unfortunate, as Tyrm had only just finished constructing the defensive barriers. He merely shrugged. The tactic had been sound, even if Khronus had rendered it somewhat unnecessary by choosing that particular moment to depart.
The Observatory
Khronus led the party in a wide semicircle around the ruined town, keeping near the remains of the crumbled wall. After completing roughly a third of the circuit, they came upon a structure that was considerably more intact than most of the surrounding buildings.
Something protruded through its partially collapsed roof. Khronus stopped. “Is that... no, it can’t be... can it?” He approached the building quickly and looked through an open doorway. Then he gasped. The chronomancer entered without waiting for the others.
Inside stood a massive telescope, mounted upon an elaborate machine of pipes, gears, levers, gauges, and other mechanisms. Khronus moved from one component to another, checking gauges and manipulating controls as he attempted to restore the device to working order.
The party was left largely to its own devices.
By this point, the strange effects of the frozen time surrounding the town had become increasingly difficult to ignore. The sun remained fixed at its zenith despite the passage of hours. Shadows had not moved. Occasionally, a bird would freeze in mid-flight for several seconds or even minutes before suddenly continuing along its original path as though nothing had happened.
The same phenomenon occurred with creatures on the ground, though it was less obvious.
For the party, even the concept of time itself was beginning to lose meaning.
Fiadhan examined the metal sphere they had found, that reflected a night sky filled with unfamiliar stars and constellations. She could learn nothing from it and eventually showed it to Khronus. The chronomancer examined it for several minutes, but could make nothing of it either. He shrugged and returned it to her, remarking only that the right collector would probably pay a substantial price for such a mysterious device.
Tyrm and the mercenaries went to work almost immediately, constructing rubble barricades across the three principal entrances on the north side of the building. Three openings on the southern walls were actually windows, and Tyrm left those for later.
Khronus continued working on the telescope.
“Need to raise the altitude... two-mark-three degrees...”
“Zoom in... raise magnification... adjust focus...”
Then, with growing excitement: “Ahh! The pendulum is accelerating! But how? What force could be causing this?”
Kildun remained nearby, assisting the chronomancer whenever necessary and watching the strange machine carefully. He noticed that the telescope was not actually aimed at the heavens. Although it tilted upward, its line of sight was directed toward the clock tower, approximately halfway up its height.
Say’ had never seen anything remotely like the device. She wandered around the observatory, lightly touching its various components and examining the desks and mechanisms. She occasionally placed a hand upon a lever or switch, but did not actually move anything.
From her perspective, the telescope seemed almost alive.
The pipes hissed with hot gases. Small bursts of steam escaped near various gauges. As Khronus worked, the entire mechanism seemed to awaken. The machine breathed.
Tori, meanwhile, had been searching for more of the ghostly figures that had appeared in the market. She found none. Since leaving that area, the party had not seen another of the strange apparitions. Perhaps the phenomenon was localized.
Then Tori heard something else: a faint humming came from somewhere near the telescope. She followed the sound and discovered a small, flattened black object resting upon the machine. It resembled a smooth glass pebble, though even smoother than a river stone, as if molten glass had formed into a droplet before slowly flattening and hardening.
The sound was remarkably regular. Whaw-whaw-whaw-whaw....
Tori showed it to Khronus. The chronomancer rolled his eyes, came over, and picked it up. The humming stopped. He shrugged and handed the object to her before returning to his work. Tori placed it back upon the telescope. It hummed again.
She moved it to another part of the mechanism. Again, it hummed. She tried placing it upon one of the desks, then upon tools and books resting there. Nothing.
Tori began testing the object against various things she and the others carried. She suspected that it might be some kind of detector, perhaps of metal or magic.
The theory quickly became difficult to support. A silver disk bearing an unknown map and coastline produced no response. Neither did a non-magical dagger, Kildun’s skeletal cat, Fiadhan’s spellbook, Tori’s obsidian Kthulhu figurine, or the protective bracelets given them by Khronus. But when she touched the object to the metal sphere reflecting the unknown stars, it hummed. She tried the folding metal multi-tool, and it hummed again.
The results were becoming increasingly difficult to explain. The corroded coins Fiadhan had discovered produced no response. Fiadhan began following Tori around, helping with the experiments.
Elsewhere, Tyrm and the mercenaries continued their work on the barricades. Say’ moved to the northwest corner and watched through the still-open doorway while they began barricading it.
Fiadhan examined the drawings and diagrams scattered across the desks. She kept a mental inventory of objects that might be worth taking later, once the party was satisfied that the observatory was safe.
The drawings were extensive, filled with diagrams and written notes. The language and alphabet were completely unfamiliar to her. The material looked much like the research notes of a wizard or sage.
Kildun noticed Fiadhan's interest and came over to examine the writings. Something about the letters seemed familiar: they resembled Lemurian pictograms, or something like it. But Kildun could not read them, nor translate them. He could only recognize the resemblance.
Aside from the notes, Fiadhan found a man's ring made of a pale silver-gray metal. It was undecorated by gems, but geometric engravings ran around its circumference. The metal was polished and showed no signs of tarnish or corrosion.
Khronus, meanwhile, had begun to expect Kildun's presence. His assistance was no longer something the chronomancer merely tolerated; Khronus now seemed to assume that Kildun would be nearby when needed. An interesting development....
Tori continued testing the humming object. Eventually, she determined one thing with certainty: it responded whenever it touched the telescope or one of the mechanisms supporting it. The metal star-map sphere responded. The folding multi-tool responded.
And then Kildun discovered another curious object. He had noticed a small switch on the telescope beginning to come loose. When he pointed it out, Khronus examined it briefly.
“It looks harmless enough. Go ahead and push it.”
Kildun did. The switch emitted a faint chime, then it broke free and fell to the floor.
Kildun picked up the object. It was a small box, perhaps two inches long, an inch wide, and half an inch thick. A spring-loaded switch remained attached to one of its flat faces.
He pushed it again. Ding-dong. The sound clearly came from the device itself.
Kildun pushed it several more times as he casually carried it around the observatory. Eventually Khronus told him to stop. He put the device into a pocket, for later.
But with Tori doing her own experiments, Kildun brought it over to her. She tested it with the pebble: it hummed.
Tori thought there must be a pattern to all this. Whatever the object was detecting, it seemed to respond to the telescope, the star map, the folding multi-tool, and Kildun's little chime device.
The ring Fiadhan had found did not produce a response. Nor did the coins. The objects seemed to have something in common, but the party could not yet determine what.
Khronus interrupted their experiments with another piece of information. “By the way, those hairless wolves you fought earlier? They are naturally blind, but can see movement through time. So if you stand very still, they may not see you even if they are very close.”
The party absorbed this information in silence.
Tyrm and the mercenaries finally completed the northern barricades and moved to the southwest corner to begin blocking the windows.
Fiadhan asked Khronus about the crates scattered around the observatory. He said that it should be safe enough to handle their contents, though he cautioned her to take care with the objects, particularly the drawings on the desks. She began with the desks.
Most of what she found was ordinary: dried-out ink pots, quill pens, and other mundane implements. But there were also finely made drawing instruments, compasses, rulers with precise measurements, directional compasses, azimuth instruments, and other tools of exceptional quality.
She eventually gathered a collection of small tools, drawing instruments, and measuring devices of sufficient quality to be worth roughly 200 gold pieces to architects, engineers, scholars, or similar buyers.
Then Tyrm and the mercenaries heard something: the soft padding of wolf feet on cobblestones. Tyrm turned, and saw one of the hairless wolves to the southwest.
Almost simultaneously, Say’ spotted another through the narrow gaps in the barricade to the northwest.
Then Kildun looked through the still-unblocked southeast window: another wolf stood outside.
The party was surrounded....
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