Kiran Ark

Now that the party has both pieces of the Kiran Ark key and an instruction book, they can use the devices. Assemble the parts, extend the legs, withdraw the cable & make a 10’ diameter circle around the device. Look through the viewer and speak the name of the location one wishes to travel to (it has to have a working mechanism, such as Ree, Al-Lorin or the Turbines in Nir). The closest mechanism and the target mechanism shall move about to coordinate for the link.

Now the user need only be within the circle and speak the activation sequence (a series of codes in a strange language). A ripple will play across the air and create a rippling watery bubble around them (marked by the cable). While they are still technically where they were a moment ago, beyond the bubble the world changes to the destination. If they step through, they will be at the new location. The bubble and joined locations will only last as long as the user speaks the code sequence. Once they stop, the bubble will collapse and the link to the other location will be severed (leaving anyone who stepped out of the circle at the new location. If the user wishes to travel to the new location, they must pick up the device (the cable is connected to the cylinder) and walk outside of the bubble; this will cause it to immediately collapse as the cable will have been pulled through and the circle broken, but they will be in the new location with the device.

While the device can be used to create a link from any location, the destination locations are set (by a ring of enchanted obsidian laced with a strange weave of mithril buried underground).

The following are the proper names of the locations with Kiran Ark machines:

• Al-Lorin (I see dead people)
• Cairdeas (Ree)
• The Hall of Winds (Nir Turbines)
• The Hall of Sky
• Rania
• Romol Gulgath
• The Sanctuary (this is where an old book stated that the Nir exiles were sent - and one of the hags told Barron that the exiles still live)
• Kolgorath (cyclops citadel to the west of Ree that is under siege by both trolls and gremlins, who are also fighting each other)
• Operation Lance
• Obsidian (not only is it the largest city in the North, it is considered to be the largest city in the world)
• Hu Fang Zi
• Tajanstven
• Docek

Location Descriptions

• Al-Lorin: exactly what you've seen many times, the grand and majestic city with a shadowy fog that shrouds it, the Kiran Ark device sits atop a mighty domed building near the center of the city. You see the unsettling motes of darkness flitting about the city. This time, there is something different. An impossibly pale woman dressed in a fine black gown that clings to her body like a second skin stands upon a balcony of the building the device sits atop. Standing next to her is a short hunched figure wearing tattered finery with an abundance of silk, a top hat and a monocle and leans upon a fancy cane. He also happens to clearly be a ghoul. The woman peers up as the device moves and turns her gaze to the north, smiling with bright red lips.

• Cairdeas (Ree): you see Ree and the Ark atop the Athenaeum. An apprentice was up topside poking at the device and making some notes. She nearly jumps out of her skin when the device moves and hastily makes her way down below, probably to report it's activity to the new Wizard, Thane the Grumpy.

• The Hall of Winds: you see the Kiran Ark device that you had discovered just above the massive balcony high up in the Nir Turbines. As the device shifts to establish a link to the Ree device, you see a dozen or so of the white turbine Maintainers run out to the balcony and begin jumping and waving excitedly. You see a hobbit and normal kobold standing behind them, peering at papers scattered across a table, they peer at the Maintainers in confusion, exchange an exasperating look with each other, shrug and return to their papers.

• The Hall of Sky: a beautiful and obviously dwarven (Olmon, not Nir) gated stronghold poking out of a snowy mountain with the Kiran Ark device located on a raised platform just to the side of the massive closed double doors of the gate. There are numerous snow coated stone structures surrounding the gate that appear to have been long abandoned. It's snowing. A lot. But peering through the device, you manage to notice a small detail; foot prints in the snow that are quickly vanishing under the new snow, that lead out from and back to the massive gate. Some look wide and booted; dwarven, but some are very definitely gnollish.

• Rania: a breathtakingly beautiful city that seems half architecture and half organic nature; certainly very ancient and even more beautiful than the elven capitol of Rhys (from Bran's perspective). The entire city is covered in snow and much of it entombed in heavy layers of ice. Towering above the entire city is a citadel built atop a hilltop covered in icy trees, the citadel has a nine star motif with the tenth star prominent in it's design. The Kiran Ark is on raised dias with a frozen garden surrounding it atop the hill where the citadel stands. When it shifted to link with the Ree device, a great deal of icy was shed from it. For a moment you thought you saw some movement near the citadel. But nothing else moved. Nothing at all. This ancient elven city is an icy graveyard for a time long lost. You remember Sorlandira having once mentioned Rania before, it was the name upon one of the books you had found in the Nir library, she had stated that it was the elven capitol of the realm they had lived in before the Lance.

• Romol Gulgath: a coastal white walled city that seems to go on forever that looks similar in style and design to Al-Lorin. Unlike Al-Lorin, this city is very much alive. The streets are full of life and very busy, the marketplace full, the docks filled with all sorts of ships of varying sizes, some impossibly big, coming and going. You see aerial creatures of fire, wind, earth and water moving about high above the buildings; genies and elementals. The Kiran Ark device sits atop a short squat domed building. You notice that when the device shifts and moves to link with the Ree device, a great deal of attention is generated. People, and the flying elemental creatures excitedly flock to the building and the device, many of them turning their gazes to the north.

• The Sanctuary: a half-ruined castle on a hilltop surrounded by forest. You see mountains in the distance. The Kiran Ark device sits on the ground in the forest near the crumbling castle. The castle is unusually built. Knowing a bit about engineering (Aidan), you deduce that this was probably built by the Nir under undesirable conditions (lack of proper tools, lack of well trained craftsmen, etc). It would seem this was likely built by the Nir who had been exiled. A pack of plump pink pigs jump and flee into the forest when the Ark device jerks into motion. A chicken can be seen in the castle, poking its head from around a crumbling wall to gaze out a the commotion.
  • Aidan's psionic perception of Sanctuary: During the brief time he spent lost in the massive psionic current that flows through Sanctuary he saw two things of note, one - dragons. Dozens of massive creatures that match the descriptions and legends - bound within the "construct" that is Sanctuary, imprisoned within it as well as being used to sustain it, their minds laid open and their power, such incredible psionic power, being drawn from them to sustain their prison. They are conscious and they have taken notice of Aidan and had begun to lay his mind open to read and assess - before they had finished, another mind found him and whisked him away from them, back into his body. When that mind touched Aidan, he saw it as it had been once in the material world and shared a glimpse of who she was, as she shared a glimpse of who he is; a tall elven woman, regal and manifesting power and authority, a queen, a warrior, a general who ruled a great nation of elves and gnolls, so very long ago - before the Lance, before the gods, when the world was young. She was Sal-Resha. She fought the dragon kings of the Primordials, they who created the Primordial Avatars. She had used the Kiran-Ark, which they had used for travel just as you do, to create and imprison the dragon kings within this prison that those who would later find it called Sanctuary. She commanded that the Arks and the Keys be buried in her tomb with the other fallen heroes of the war so that the dragons kings could never be released again. The dragon kings would be used to create and sustain the prison, but she had sacrificed her life once they were captured within in order to seal it.

• Kolgorath: blasted and lifeless plains surround a mighty citadel which looks like a many step-tiered city built higher and higher with walls that continued to grow taller with it. You can see from here that the city is populated with cyclops and a war seems to be waging beyond it's towering walls. You have heard tales of the great citadel stronghold of Kolgorath, the last home of the once great cyclops far to the west of Ree. Sorlandira had spoken of the trolls and gremlins that lay siege upon it's walls. A startled cyclops jumps away when the Kiran Ark jerks into motion, slipping and falling, quite probably to his death, some dozen or so levels below the platform where he was standing next to it. Oops...

• Operation Lance: you see a strange structure that seems to go on without end, up and down, there is no ground or sky in sight - just this strange stone and metal structure with unusual lines of golden light arcing through its substance. The Kiran Ark device sits upon a large balcony built on the side of the structure with a closed door leading within. Bran, having seen it before, you're pretty sure this IS the Lance. Probably very, very high up on it, as you have never seen or even heard of any balconies on it (or you probably would have tried to climb to it...and mostly likely been executed by the Churches of the Gods).

• Obsidian: you've heard of Obsidian. It's where Shaza, Brook and Ebenezer are from (and where Shaza, Ebenezer and Ashtir are currently headed). It's said to be the largest city in the North. The city walls are made entirely of obsidian, with wood and stone battlements built on the inner side of the deadly sharp and jagged walls, as is the tall capitol tower at the center of the city. When the Lance had been activated ages ago, this location was an actively erupting volcano, but when the Lance caused the cataclysm in the North, the lava flows and eruption were immediately frozen and transformed into pure obsidian in impossible formations and the volcanic activity below had ceased entirely as the world had been changed. The obsidian was carved into the outer walls of the city and the central spire created from the erupting lava geyser was hollowed out as the capitol building of the city. The city is alive and bustling, you see towers that act as "piers" for the numerous airships in the sky. You see factories leaking black smoke from towering smokestacks into the sky, you see....strange horseless wagons moving about the streets. You see gnolls, rat people, crow people, brown humans like Shaza and an assortment of other strange races you have never seen or heard of. Much like when you viewed Romol Gulgath, the movement of the Kiran Ark, located in a plaza near the front gate of the city, draws a great deal of attention and interest. As well as guards. Lots of armed guards with guns.

• Hu Fang Zi: a city of entirely alien architecture, steppe pyramids and strange little elegant and elaborately detailed structures. You have never seen, nor heard of this sort of architecture. Neither of you have. (out-of-character: imagine a fusion of Aztec & Chinese architecture - or just cover an Aztec pyramid with Chinese structures and you'll be golden). The city is largely dominated by a serpent motif, with statue and carvings of what appear to be snake people. In many of the depictions you see what appear to be strange looking people (none of you have ever seen monkeys) that are bowing, praising and offering tribute and their young to the snake people that tower majestically above them. The city is surrounded by strange dense growth (jungle, which you've also never seen) that seems to be overtaking the city. You see a pride of massive blue-black cats with six legs and tentacles sprouting from their backs become startled and vanish into the overgrowth as the Kiran Ark comes to life. If there are other residents, you do not see them; the city seems abandoned to wildlife and plants.

• Tajanstven: You see a grand cavern with a bizarre looking city half made up of towers and bridges (as if the architects had read far too much Dr. Seuss), lit with pale lights on an island in the middle of a vast underground lake that dimly glows with an orange light. Bridges lead beyond the lake to great gateways carved into the rock of the cave, leading elsewhere into the depths. The Kiran Ark is located in the middle of one of these bridges and the residents gather to ponderously gaze at it. You have no idea what these little people are. You'd say they're really strange looking grey skinned, wiry built...dwarves? It's clear that this city is underground.

• Docek: you gaze in wonder at a vast, non-euclidean underwater city made from coral, sandstone and other materials you are not familiar with. There is single structure that stands out dramatically from the rest, a squat little square sandstone building encased in the middle of a little bubble of air. There is a tidy little garden located around it. The Kiran Ark sits atop this building. The city is alive with many swimming creatures unlike anything you have ever seen. There seems to be some sort of battle going on between different sorts of the aquatic creatures. An old woman with her grey hair up in a bun stands outside the little square building. She holds a plow and watering can in her hand and worriedly gazes out of the bubble at the battle all about her.