Settlements and Sites of the Four City-States #200

Settlements and Sites of the Four City-States #200 

July 19th, 2023 

• Number: 200 

• Name: Sequential Dive on a Site of Interest: West Rift Ventures of Carasta Part 4: Loot and Consequences 

• Location:  Center of the Narrows between the Sleeping Woods and the Furnace 

• Population (approx.): 210 

• Brief: The work of the West Rift Ventures continued. A second mining shaft encountered another buried green-coated building and was turned over to the scholars. But the third continued into the depths below the buried city. At the rift, the miners reached the rubble choked floor of the crevasse, finding further artifacts among steam vents and orange-glowing cracks in the earth suggesting lava in the deeper depths. Both ore miners and artifact miners expanded their crews bringing laborers and additional experts such as Branbrick late of the Gold Mountains. 

• Branbrick, 79, Dwarf man, is an artifact miner who loves the feel of all types of dirt. He is of average height and wears several tattoos on his arms and legs. Branbrick has brown hair with streaks of blonde throughout it. His beard is full and separated into three braids. He wears dark pants, long sleeve shirts, and a leather tool belt. Branbrick can defend himself with a large hammer if necessary. 

• Branbrick has been working for the Miner's Guild for almost 50 years. He is quite skilled in knowing how to sort dirt from historical pieces carefully. This makes him a valued commodity by Wemwoda Wyverndelver (#199). He enjoys working on digs and has a vivid imagination. Branbrick often makes up stories about the pieces they found during the day. He tells them at the campfire in the evenings. 

• Branbrick is a bit of a "player." He finds a new female at every dig site. He doesn't care about their race; he knows the relationship won't last long. Branbrick doesn't get along with his family and has few serious friends. He enjoys telling his stories and writes in a journal just before he goes to sleep. 

• One evening Branbrick is taking a stroll after a moment back at camp when he encounters a furious Wemwodar searching for Kumec, as the man skipped a meeting and can’t be found. They head toward the mine shafts but stop suddenly at the tents being used to store the artifacts and remains for one of the tents appears oddly distorted with a faint green glow filtering through the seams and at the base along the ground. Branbrick yanks the tent flap open, and they discovered the entire interior is filled with an irregular mound of pale green translucent material of some sort, and encased within, near the center, is the silent form of Kumec. 

• It takes Branbrick, Wemwoda and other miners nearly an hour to dig through the green stone-like material. By the time they reach the center, Kumec is long dead. Sarya Trisric (#198), arriving at the scene, notes that it appears Kumec was doing something with all of the green powder samples collected to date. Later scholars and magicians, investigating this strange occurrence, note the green stone slowly shrinks over time, becoming the dense green powder again.  

• Geography: The miners begin a 4th shaft about 30 yards away from the shaft that did not encounter the ruins. The rift elevator is now fully operational, and the rift crews are assembling scaffolding against the rift wall to facilitate digging tunnels horizontally into the earth. The “tent of the green tomb,” as now nicknamed, and adjacent artifact tents, are under armed guard 24 hours a day. Samples of the green powder, with much care, are collected and dispatched to Carasta along with some bones and an artifact or two. 

• Next Article: West Rift Ventures Part 5: Not Dead and Buried