- Pronoun
- they or she
Mystery Dungeons are strange things. Folks who live near one will often swear up and down that the rift has a 'personality'. Some dungeons play tricks on interlopers, turning them around in a loop that lands them back at the mouth. Others offer berries and healing seeds to weary travellers. Others display remnants of their past, sights and sounds out of history... replaying a tragedy over and over and over, thousands or even millions of times, an endless moving picture show of their origin to any who venture deep enough to witness it.
Blackglass Caldera is one such place.
Further up the coast of Lake Cobalt, the sand turns black and shiny – volcanic glass, worn smooth over generations. It doesn't take more than a few decades for obsidian to wear down this way, but a little further inland, one can find the source of new black-glass sand: an ancient caldera, riven long ago into a mystery dungeon. It's pretty tame, as spacetime rifts go, and something of a tourist attraction. One can make a bit of money escorting visitors with no battle experience to the deeper layers! Apparently, some 'mon see things if they go far enough in. The fiery blood of the earth welling from wounds in the crust, smoke filling the sky... Visions of millennia past?
For all this and more – and a souvenir of sharp-edged volcanic glass to take home with you – there are guides stationed in little huts not far from the mouth of the rift. They'll take you a level or two deep for a pawful of silver dollars. More, if you pay good money. But not to the depths, not to the heart.
For that, the Wayfarers would need to depend on themselves. And to the heart they would likely need to to go, given the weight of Powehi's instructions...
The upper levels of Blackglass Caldera appear as the lip of a long-dead volcano's mouth, criss-crossed with boardwalk paths and hewn stairs, and littered with black sand and obsidian outcroppings. In the centre of the crater lies a pale turquoise lakelet, often frozen over in the month of Frost.
Deeper in, the walkways disappear. The sky darkens. And the lake first thaws, then steams...
Blackglass Caldera is one such place.
Further up the coast of Lake Cobalt, the sand turns black and shiny – volcanic glass, worn smooth over generations. It doesn't take more than a few decades for obsidian to wear down this way, but a little further inland, one can find the source of new black-glass sand: an ancient caldera, riven long ago into a mystery dungeon. It's pretty tame, as spacetime rifts go, and something of a tourist attraction. One can make a bit of money escorting visitors with no battle experience to the deeper layers! Apparently, some 'mon see things if they go far enough in. The fiery blood of the earth welling from wounds in the crust, smoke filling the sky... Visions of millennia past?
For all this and more – and a souvenir of sharp-edged volcanic glass to take home with you – there are guides stationed in little huts not far from the mouth of the rift. They'll take you a level or two deep for a pawful of silver dollars. More, if you pay good money. But not to the depths, not to the heart.
For that, the Wayfarers would need to depend on themselves. And to the heart they would likely need to to go, given the weight of Powehi's instructions...
The upper levels of Blackglass Caldera appear as the lip of a long-dead volcano's mouth, criss-crossed with boardwalk paths and hewn stairs, and littered with black sand and obsidian outcroppings. In the centre of the crater lies a pale turquoise lakelet, often frozen over in the month of Frost.
Deeper in, the walkways disappear. The sky darkens. And the lake first thaws, then steams...
Last edited: