Looking for Keeps

Looking for Keeps
Date	5/30/2025
Storyteller	Slayzo
Tier	Master/Legendary
Player Characters	Serene Leyvald, Cyrus Leyvald, Illiam Elro, Melfyra, Pomba, Kirrily Icesickle
Rewards	300 xp, 30000 gp, Linnorm's Sankeit, 10 Keepstone Ingots, Scroll of Linnorm's Sting (rank 9)
Result	Success
Author	Melfyra
Downtime	21

So, recently Lictor Zeal and Kali had heard of some guy who knew about a rare material known as Keepstone that's resistant to divination magic, and was willing to pay anyone who could find the guy and get more of the stuff. We were given no information on what to look for other than "a beautiful male-presenting dwarf". I have no idea what that means, but that's probably just because I don't see men as attractive. I ask my connections within Clan Ashenforge for more information, but I just keep getting pointed towards King Bright-Eyes, and I don't think he's who we're looking for. Fortunately, Illiam and Cyrus have strong enough magic that can track him down even with the effects of the Keepstone. We find a guy named Goddard selling an icon of the Mosquito Witch in the markets, and he tells us of a place called Godforge Keep. It's three weeks away, so Cyrus asks Kali about crafting a wand of teleport for the return trip. When we do eventually get there, Goddard doesn't know where the entrance is. I figure that it's probably buried under the earth, and use a metal detection spell to look around, while Kirrily goes for a swim in the nearby beach, figuring it's underwater. She points out that there's a ton of dead fish here, remains from a battle with a taiga linnorm according to Goddard. It doesn't take too long for me to find a large source of metal underground, and with Pomba's help, we unearth a set of stairs leading towards a door. This must be the place. Goddard decides to stay up topside, figuring it would be safer. The door itself leads us to an underground chamber, it looks like a cave connected to a sewer system, truly a horrifying place. We follow the cave away from the sewers and find some mindbreak mushrooms. I make a note to pick some on the way out, the highs from them are incredible. We eventually come across a door with a bone fetish on it, containing a powerful bleeding curse. It looks like it has ties to the Mosquito Witch. Using some mirror trickery, Cyrus puts down a teleportation spell to get us to the other side of the door without triggering the curse. We find a ritual going on on the other side, 13 cultists, and a winged creature of some sorts, and lots of eyes on the far wall. Considering they're talking about making sacrifices to "sunder the earth", we figure that there's some bad shit going on here, and that they need to be wiped out. The cultists have some weird worms that burrowed into our foreheads and made us older, though Cyrus pointed out that the worms were only mental projections or something like that. Aside from how weird it was to actually get old for a bit, and the fact that the winged creature was draining people's blood (it wasn't a vampire, it looked eerier too eerie, more mosquito like), they didn't put up too much of a fight, with several of them going down to a few chain lightnings. The Linnorm that burrowed out of the ground and set the whole room on fire on the other hand was way more dangerous. It was regeneration, was firing off its smoldering breath really quickly, and was really giving all of us problems. Aside from Illiam dying (they're fine, Serene had a breath of life spell from a ring), we suffered no casualties. We just repeatedly hit the linnorm until it stopped getting back up. I suspect that Kirrily was the one who eventually got the killing blow, since she has cold iron weaponry. She also found a key in a hidden box near the altar the cultists were praying to. After a quick look through the rest of the cave (there wasn't much in here other than a room that automatically locked itself behind someone and constantly bombarded them with magic), we find the Godforge itself near the living quarters and are able to scavenge as much keepstone as we can. As we're leaving with our haul, we find that Goddard has been drained of his blood (it wasn't me or Pomba, we were nowhere near him when he died), and we see more of the winged creatures surrounding a bigger linnorm who flies off into the distance. Illiam identifies him as Fafnheir, father of Linnorms, and points out that his reflexes are pretty bad. This looks like a problem we're going to have to deal with at some point, and if his blood tastes as good as the Linnorm we fought in the chamber with the cultists, then I'm sure the feast following his downfall will be glorious. For now though, we teleport back home, and sell our haul. Both Siltmean and Lictor Zeal are looking for the keepstone, and will pay a very generous price for it.