Month: October 2015

Session 79 – October 21, 2015

Regroup!

After quickly dispatching the envoys of the “Dark king” and taking control of 40 “undying” zombies the Starchy Boys thought they had some time to consider their next steps. 

However fate had other plans. Not long after the battle ended, and after confirming those that ran down into the lower levels perished a load familiar noise echoed down the halls and another message was issued by the “Dark King” directly offering Thorfus by name a chance to join forces with the “Dark King” – he had until sundown to decide.

Edan and Chuq answered by severely maiming two heralds before they passed through the portal back to the jungle where another host of undying and their supporters waited. Thorfus then ordered his undying into position in front of that same portal with Edan watching over them while the rest of the Starchy Boys began to pack for a strategic retreat and Chuq scouted the opponents. Chuq soon found that they were much more powerful than the previous group and after a brief skirmish had them retreat into the jungle out of range of our missile weapons. Roughly 180 visible opponents, including the undying and a trio priests: one with eyes, one with a mouth and last with only ears (I think I got that wrong).  

During the planning, Thorfus began to have difficulty understanding those around him and after removing and Derich explaining that the circlets were often used in hierarchical groups it was deduced that our opponents were reading Thorfus’ mind gaining valuable information. 

With that realization Thorfus removed the circlet and the party began to pack to retreat through the portal to another area accessible to them, but with a bit of sabotage unreachable by our opponents. 

As the packing was complete Edan began to notice that their undying “army” had begun to speak and whisper, when Axel and Chuq came to have the undying remove the corpse of the dinosaur, they turned on the party. Prompting a quick retreat of the three towards the central portal where the others had already begun crossing to the Mechanical & Engineering area.

Once through, a quick sweep of Thorfus’ amulet ensured that were safe from the “Dark King” for now. 

After a quick scan of the surrounding areas by Chuq and needed rest – it was decided to make a return trip to the lower city of ZelKel.

There the Starchy Boys explained much to Edan about the current situation the party finds itself in while on their way to meet one of their few allies – a Naga. 

With Naga – Thorfus explain what happened and what they discovered, Naga confirmed and added more information as follows:

1. Surprised that there was another entrance to the complex, wasn’t thrilled that the party was not able to defeat them, but confirmed that the circlet was a liability and retreat was the best option. Hopes we’ll be able to re-take it.

2. Doesn’t know who the “Dark King” is, but was startled to learn that he had the eyes, ears and mouth of the dwarven god. 

3. Confirmed that there was more than one Grand Marshal (but only one at a time), and that every one of them had a probability sword.

4. Confirmed that the Dragon princess was never captured but perished during the last battle of the rebellion. Noted that another dragon in the area may be able to shed light on this as it was old when the naga was young. 

*I may have missed some other details, feel free to add them in the comments.

We left off as our conversation ended with the Naga. 

Session 76 Summary

*This would’ve been a lot quicker, but I wasted a whole bunch of time typing out Session 74 again cos I’m a fool*

We were in the thick of things yet again. After entering the Calculation and Processing room,  the shadow creatures had ambushed us, ringing myself, Thorfus, Chuq and Edan and putting our backs to the wall. After a brief exchange of blows, they dematerialise however, wailing the entire time in what apparently is Ancient Dwarven, though only Chuq can hear them. It seems they don’t like the sheer amount of magical light we’re carrying.

The lights seem to flicker in thier passing, and the gasps of shock alert us to their reappearance amongst the hirelings. Chuq quickly grabs Edan and shadow-steps into the melee, right on top of one of them. Myself and Thorfus have to hoof it the old-fashioned way. We clash briefly, and whilst we land a few blows, four of them gang up on Apolline, wounding him and dragging him down through the floor.

It’s a difficult fight, shadows aren’t exactly easy to hit, but in the middle of a crowd, mixed in amongst our own shadows and with a significant number of glowing weapons swinging around we were lucky we even knew where they were. I was lucky I had my suit, the odd visor helped immensely in identifying them. Oddly enough, they are still vulnerable to electricity as well, as Zelena uses up her stun stick’s charge in bringing one down.

The shadows are cowardly creatures it seems, as they swiftly disappear away from us again, going after the fleeing Fulbert. Four of them descend on the old man, whose only defence is Pons, who is looking to the south, and Sumnah, who is oddly brave but lacking the means to hurt them. The ancient elf launches a pair of arrows into the shadows, but succeeds only in hitting Fulbert in the eye. A mercy kill I’m sure, as he was seconds from becoming one of the foul creatures.

Two more appear behind Owyn and Guarinus, so myself and Thorfus run into save them whilst everyone else head to the octagonal portal room. Thankfully we pinned the doors open. I gulp down a healing potion as we charge in, only to be greeted by two more suddenly appearing in front of us.

We clear the room as quick as we can. The shadows seem to explode after a fashion when they die, but even with that we can’t be sure none escaped. I bring down the last visible, and we rush back out into the corridor. The shadows continue to assault anyone vulnerable or alone, leading us on a merry chase and seemingly avoiding Chuq especially. Slowly, we gather the entire party together in the portal room however, making things easier on us.

While we assess what to do, they strike again enmasse, several jumping on the weakened Owyn. We counter-attack as best we can, trying to bring the magically armed to the front and protect the others, who retreat through the northern airlock. In the scuffle, Zelena is dragged through the floor and Owyn narrowly avoids a similar fate. We banish three only to have another two appear from nowhere, but eventually we are able to bring them all down.

I’m quite proud to say I got the final blow.

The party as a whole heads north. The cell area is relatively safe from the shadows thanks to the airlock and Desric’s protections, and with a couple of rooms being open, we have a decent number of beds and space for people to rest a night.

Chuq however, has other ideas. There is no saving thier lives, much to Belroar’s dismay, but the monk believes he can at least retrieve some of thier equipment and perhaps thier bodies. Whilst me and Thorfus keeping an eye out from the observation room, Chuq returns to the portal room and shifts into the shadows.

After several long, tense moments he returns, carrying Zelena’s body and a bundle of ancient dwarven robes. He looks exhausted, no doubt people aren’t supposed to live in the shadows, and tells tales of the shadows being dead dwarven acolytes.  Disturbingly, Zelena has suffered additional injuries, and it seems as if we had fought and killed her shadow as well.

We’re happy for his success, and take the time to lay Zelena and Fulbert to rest. After, we set a customary watch from within the observation room, but go for a longer twelve hours due to the number of injuries. I take a bit of time to talk to Sturloc during our watch. The hireling has been finding it tough, especially now with Talon gone too.

By morning, we set Edan up with some of the Elven gear we’d recovered, recovered our strength, and healed a few of the injuries. We eat breakfast, finishing off most of out water,  and Thorfus starts fiddling with the pedestals, hoping the platinum key gives us access to something more. He gets three options, which seems to be no different to before, except for acknowledging the key’s presence. He activates the sonic deterrent, which merely sets of an ear-splitting noise below, evidently the signal the dwarven captors used to send thier prisoners back to cells.

We decide to test the key with the portal to the north, and discover a broken key scattered around the pedestal there. Our key doesn’t seem to work. Checking the shards, we discover the key was similar to ours, but with an extra option of an ‘x’.

We spend some more time going through the bio-forge cubes, reading through the cryptic notes, learning what the dwarves thought of humans, elves, orcs, kobolds, ogres and lizardmen from thier studies. Several addendums note the potential uses of the various species for the dwarven empire, such as the orcs possibly making good ‘undying berserkers’.

The reptilian cubes are next, and we learn about how they tried to subvert the dragon species for war, including the creation of wingless drakes. The larger reptiles were deemed deadly, but unintelligent, and nowhere near strong enough to combat a dragon. The raptors were considered useful as ‘attack dogs’, being deployed through the portal system, though the council overruled this decision. Apparently, experiments were underway to compine the raptor’s intelligence with the larger lizard’s strength.

(John, have you been watching Jurassic World? xD )

Attempting to close the southern portal from here ends with failure, causing a flicker of power throughout the facility. It seems the power system in the southern room has been damaged, locking the portal open.

The party then plans to head back west, and collect the cubes from the calculation room. We leave behind most of the rescued prisoners and some of the injured, mostly taking anybody with a magical weapon. Chuq picks up mental activity to the east, but the west seems clear, so we gather up the cubes from both rooms in the east wing.

Unfortunately, we get jumped by a pair of shadows in the right-hand room. Naturally it was quite the ambush, as they managed to land two hits on me. TWO! I feel my strength get sapped yet again, the lucky gits. If they’d come at me honourably it’d have been a different story!

This time, with there only being two and us not needing to protect anybody, they quickly fall to our superior numbers.

The next task is to set up an area in order to combat the zombie horde to the east. We decide to fall back on our old ‘net across the door’ trick, adding the carts in as additional fall-back points and shooting platforms. Letting them come to us is the easiest method, especially since they’ll bottle neck in the airlock. Setting this up also give me time to get over the effects of the shadow’s touch.

Chuq goes ahead and pins the doors open, which prompts a reaction from the north, like the sound of a bunch of chairs scraping back and footsteps approaching. Chuq retreats and we prepare to fight. As the undead dwarves round the corner, they are met with a hail of arrows and bolts. A couple fall, but no less than sixteen charge down the corridor towards us. The net comes in handy, as me and Thorfus hack at the front ranks supported by Chuq and Beloar, more ranged fire flies over our heads to drop the rear ranks.

It’s a fairly easy fight, though I need a heal from Derich to keep going due to my earlier injuries. Even Sturloc and Kottar get in on the killing, scoring a few good hits with thier crossbows, it seems fish in the barrel style fights help them out quite nicely. Jaegar punctuates the end of the fight, pretty much exploding the skeleton’s skull.

After this fight, our spoils are becoming rather too many with the addition of the undead’s weapons, a small pile of platinum cutlery. We start piling loot in the corner of the room, since there is far too much even for the carts at this point. After Derich expends a few more heals on the party, we prepare to head east, though we’ll need to find water soon.

Session 78 – October 14, 2015

After dispatching the plant-infested undead from the previous session and a short rest. Our heroes magically explore the ruins above for unusual activity.

Finding nothing out of the ordinary, Edan (silently and nearly invisibly) headed out to ensure no other undead were around and explore the area just beyond the recreation room from which the plant-infested undead came from.

The area, divided into two tiled areas equipped with water spouts, was obviously some kind of bath-house. Both areas were covered with a thick layer of moss and fungus while the locker lining one wall were completely free of such vegetation.

Upon closer inspection, Edan noticed movement among the vegetation. Specifically from cocoons along the walls of the first and second areas – the longer he lingered the more agitated they seemed. Edan quickly headed back to the others who were already on their way to join him, clearly not worried about any remaining undead – and dashing Edan’s hope to gather some choice objects from the gaming table.

After Edan explained what he found, the party quickly devised a plan to cover the vegetation with oil and light it on fire. Using a spear onto which they lashed oil flasks – they covered as much as the vegetation and cocoons with oil as possible.

During that time Edan rummaged and searched through the metal lockers – finding some valuable clothes, cards and a silver armband that he found intriguing. Chuq locked a door to another room – just in case.  

Once the oil was spread and Edan had completed his search of the lockers, Chuq lit the oil on fire and retreated back into the recreational room. The fire spread quickly consuming the vegetation and filling the upper half of the room with smoke. As soon as the fire reached the cocoons they burned away revealing the skeletons of dwarves long dead and forcing plodding fungal creatures to begin to move towards the party. 

With bow, fire and sword – the tenacious plodding creatures were dispatched. Their lack of speed their obvious downfall.

While the team waited for the room to slowly clear of smoke, the party collected the platinum coins, gold amulet and various other knickknacks strewn over the floor and tables of the room. Meanwhile – the dwarves busied themselves testing the information cubes which turned out to contain various entertaining games. 

It was getting very late and the party decided to return to the dormitory area in order to sleep and recuperate for a while. After setting a guard – many retired to sleep.

The party’s rest was interrupted early in the morning – around 6am – by a thunderous sound followed by a message in both ancient dwarf and the common tongue demanding our surrender to a “Dark King.”

Edan, knowing full well that he couldn’t be easily heard or seen, quickly moved into the octagonal room to look towards the entry area of the complex. There he saw row upon row of motionless warriors being tended to by other normal looking people.

Upon that discovery Chuq quickly devised a plan to lock access to the complex beyond the octagonal room using his shadow walk ability. However, the sounds of the closing and locking doors alerted the “army” and had them rush into the octagonal room – but the task was done, the doors were locked and the “army” knew the party had done it.

Then, all at once, the “army” then began to destroy the walls separating them from the party – as if commanded by an unseen force.

Soon, an imposing female warrior asked us again to surrender. After convincing the leader to stop the destruction of the walls, Chuq and Belroar soon deduced that her silver circlet was controlling the “army” and a plan was hatched to use Chuq’s shadow step ability to attempt to steal the circlet from her head while she was distracted by Belroar’s rambling discussion and Edan’s arrows. 

The plan worked (with help from some divine intervention) and Thorfus placed the circlet onto his head and gained control of the “army” while Edan’s arrows felled a spell caster. Upon returning to the hallway, Thorfus promptly ordered to destroy the non-zombies. 

The ensuing battle nearly killed Belroar as the now furious leader stabbed at him through an arrow slit, but the tables turned quickly when Thorfus and his probability sword killed the leader and crushed the moral of the remaining foes.

It wasn’t long before the party defeated the remaining foes dead, or drove them down into the elevator shaft where the undead await. One almost fled – but Chuq managed to get to him and kill him. 

The party, now with an army of mind-controlled zombie warriors, must decide their next steps.