Abandoned Wartorn Town Thieves Dens Free 40×30 Multi-Level Battlemap & Adventure

The Broken Crystal of Eldermere

One day, while traversing the countryside, you are suddenly shocked to discover a large wooden timber doorway in front of you. As you approach, both doors swing open side-by-side, revealing what appears to be the interior of a castle hallway. Voices beckon you inside by name, claiming to have sought you out in particular.

Once inside, the doors behind you close, and you find yourself in a long stone hallway. Eventually, you reach another set of doors, swinging them open to reveal a circular chamber. Inside, seven wizards sit upon thrones.

The wizards welcome you to their abode and introduce themselves as the Council of Arcane Scholars, an organization that monitors magical artifacts and disturbances across the realm. They explain that a surge in magical energy has been detected in a place called Eldermere, once beautiful but now in ruins.

The council fears that the dormant power of a long-thought-destroyed artifact known as the Echo Crystal may be the cause of the disturbance. They request your assistance to investigate and, if necessary, collect and bring the artifact back to them for the safety of the realm.

If you inquire about why you were chosen, one of the wizards explains that they keep tabs on all types of heroes within the realm, and you seemed to fit the requirements of this request the best. If you ask what made you the best choice, they may cite your aptitude for the arcane, should you possess any skills in that area, or comment on your previous achievements.

Inquiring about the Echo Crystal, the wizards reveal that it was once a powerful scrying device used by the wizards of Eldermere. During the war, it was damaged in a magical explosion, fragmenting into many pieces. These shards were thought lost, but the current disturbance suggests otherwise.

Agreeing to assist in the investigation, the wizards thank you but also warn that malevolent forces, drawn to the artifact’s potential, may be converging on the village. With this caution in mind, you leave the wizard’s castle through the original hallway entrance and find yourself in a desolate land upon a hill overlooking the remains of what must be Eldermere.

Making your way down the hill to the town, you discover it seemingly empty at first. Old trenches line the streets between houses, remnants of fortifications from the war. Using spells to detect magic might reveal the general location of the Echo Crystal, but a thorough search of the town could also lead you to a set of underground basements within the trenches that still appear to be inhabited.

The townsfolk are dressed in somewhat plain but well-kept cotton clothes and are shocked to see an outsider, looks of apprehension on their faces because of your arrival. If you explain your search for the Echo Crystal, the townsfolk say they don’t know what you’re talking about in worried voices and wish for you to leave immediately.

If you choose to leave without forcing the townsfolk’s hands, you may be able to track the crystal down either via magic or an extensive sweep of the rest of the town.

Approaching the area where the crystal is hidden, you notice something seems off and soon after find bodies of some of the residents, their throats slit. Making your way through the trenches to reach the crystal you find more bodies until you begin encountering dark robed figures who are in the middle of dispatching some of the poor townsfolk.

When they see you, they attack you on site and refuse to back down, fanatical in their assault. When you arrive at the crystal a figure in a pitch black robe that seems to steal the light is standing in front of it flanked by his loyal followers in similar garb to the men you’ve already been fighting.

The crystal appears to only be partially fixed, Its broken shards hovering around a glowing red magical core but the man in the pitch black robe appears to be adding additional shards to its form. Before you can stop him the Echo Crystal shudders, sucking in the shards and healing itself into a fully formed orb that looks corrupted by shadow. The man in the pitch black robe then instructs his followers to deal with you and they all in unison acknowledge the man’s wishes, referring to him as Shadowseeker Kiber.

Kiber picking up the orb is wreathed in flame like shadows and assists his followers by launching shadow magic at you from afar, clearly empowered by his position of the Echo Crystal. If you managed to get the townsfolk to assist you in finding the crystal, they beg you not to destroy the Echo Crystal but also not allow Kiber to get away with it, explaining that losing the Echo Crystal would doom them all.

If you don’t destroy the Echo Crystal, Kiber is an extremely powerful foe, teleporting around the room from the shadows and if drawn into close combat drawing a sword of pure shadow. When dealing him a deathblow he however just disapparates into the shadows, whispering that he returns to Nihilus, for now.

The townsfolk are ever grateful for your assistance before explaining the true extent to what befell the town of Eldermere. They explain that after the Echo Crystal was destroyed the invading army left, as it no longer had any reason to be there. Out of the remaining townsfolk all of whom were bunkered down in the district during the Echo Crystal explosion, some chose to leave while others wished to stay and rebuild. Those who tried to leave however, soon found themselves withering away into husks within days of leaving the town. Without any other choices and no idea what was happening the remaining townsfolk were forced to stay and do the best they could. That was over a hundred years ago.

You see, the townsfolk continue, they found out that the Echo Crystal had not been fully destroyed during the explosion but only shattered into magical shards within the town. Those within a large proximity of the crystal during this time gained a connection with its power. While they could no longer leave the presence of the shards for prolonged periods of time, they no longer felt hunger or thirst while in its presence, nor did they age.

They hoped one day when they finally recovered all the shards and reformed the Crystal that they could leave but no matter how much they tried they could never find the last few shards. Of course that makes sense now, as the man named Kiber was a former town member who must have found them long ago and fled with them.

They believed he had just gone mad and run off into the desolate wastes but that doesn’t seem to have been the case. What horrors he now worships the townsfolk don’t know but they have a terrible feeling he will be back in future to claim the orb again and thus are happy if you ask to take it back to the wizards now that their curse and blessing has been broken.

If you instead choose to destroy the Echo Crystal it shatters before imploding on itself in a blast of shadow energy, leaving nothing in its place. This makes Kiber much easier to deal with but the townsfolk you’re with begin to wither, his flesh drying on his skeleton then turning to dust leaving nothing but his bones. If you inspect the rest of the town afterwards you find similar skeletal remains throughout, with no living townsfolk to be seen.

Returning to the wizards through the door on the hill outside town, they’re shocked to hear your accounting of events whether you destroyed the Echo Crystal or not. If the crystal was destroyed, they thank you for your assistance explaining that at least it appears the crystal will not go on to be used by evil even if it did mean the death of all those townsfolk. If you ask why you think they all died, one of the wizards will explain that the Echo Crystal had many powerful qualities and that it’s not beyond reasoning that its magical shards somehow gave the townsfolk eternal life, at least while they kept them close.

If however you didn’t destroy the Echo Crystal, the wizards are pleased when you return with it. Locking it within a grand vault which opens beneath your feet in the circular chamber the wizard’s thrones are in before rewarding you with a suitable magical item of use for your efforts.

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