12.0 – Volturnus: City of Fire

Reaching the shore, the team felt heat emanating from the cave entrances into the catacombs.  Entering the catacombs, the next chamber they encountered had a massive Ul-Mor stone statue on a throne.  Surrounding the throne was the wreckage of some kind of control or research room, with console units jutting out of stone and rock.  The party was able to access some of its memory miraculously, and found more information about the catacombs and what it once was.

Contained within these records was the following:

• The facility that was under this mountain at one time was here to study one of many alien starships that were found imbedded in the crust of the planet, crashing here millenia before the Eorna.  These alien spacecraft were all crystal-tech based.
• This particular alien spacecraft was a prison ship that contained multiple extra-dimensional beings stored in pods.
• These pods were stored in the lower levels of the facility.

The room suddenly filled with noxious gas and before they knew it, two members of their party was missing.  The remaining members were approached by small (perhaps devolved) versions of the Eorna.  They called themselves the Yernoids.  They lived in this catacombs.  However, their home has been invaded recently by “devils.”  “Devils must fight devils…”  Their translators seemed to mis-translate their strange language.  Devils and strangers must mean the same thing in their language.

What the party was convinced into fighting were mutated versions of the alien prisoners.  They were mutated by the molten crystal that seems to permeate everywhere on this side of the river.  THey also had the ability to mutate other things like tunnel worms, flying cave bat creatures and the Yernoids themselves.  Dealing with them and their much large boss, the party was rejoined and had a new ally – the Yernoids.