Month: February 2016

Session 95

29th Faurilden, 10:10am

The party sits at the Engineering portal, watching Thorfus direct one of the monkeys through the Pathogen labs. He reports seeing the one group of creatures get shocked in response to breaking the window, though the others seem unable to damage the window at all. The monkey is now at the edge of his range however, leaving us unable to see more.

We pause to consider the next move, wondering about the defences, and whether a third portal could dial in at all whilst we held this connection open. Thorfus moves closer to the portal on our side to extend his range, allowing the monkey to look around the nearby corners. Doing so seems to trigger the lighting in the area to turn on, although it appears flickery, indicating possible power problems.

To the east, the corridor turns north east,  with a door sitting in the middle of the north-west wall, appearing to be locked. The south-east wall is still entirely glass holding back the ten oozing humanoids we can see, and there appears to be an electrical hoist sometimes visible beneath their feet. Behind them, another glass wall reveals another corridor, and a pair of door beside them.

Chuq asks for a closer look at the creatures, and the monkey reveals them to be seemingly naked humans, or perhaps elves, of both sexes. Thier skin is rubbery and gives way quite easily, as evidenced by thier blows and whenever they collide, and it seems that whatever the bone structure they may have would be dislocated by our standards. They seem quite mindless, only intent on getting through the glass.

Thorfus directs the monkey to continue down the corridor, it first turning north, then north-west, as if circling the portal room. The lights seem to follow the monkey, activating ahead of it and deactivating behind. Another glass room to the north-east is devoid of occupants, though there is another electrical hoist present.

Whilst this is going on, Chuq sends Socrates through the portal to triangulate his location with Finkleworm. On return, the owl relays that Finklemur believes that we are closer than our previous location, and potentially able to arrive within a day. We tell him to start digging, though Socrates says the wizard is distracted, and apparently having trouble perceiving time. As far as we can tell, when the owl returns, there has been no ill effects of being on the other side.

As the monkey continues round, another glass chamber to the north-west is revealed, this time filled with humanoids covered in fungal growths. The lights coming on seem to waken them, and like the others they press forward and begin beating on the glass.

Continuing the circuit, the monkey passes yet more windowless locked doors. The south-west room now however is empty beyond its cracked glass. There are no signs that the doors or hoist within have been used, but the monkey’s senses show picked up nothing of the bony creature’s egress. We guess they went south.

The south-most room still holds the four necrotic humanoids, some sitting, some standing, and completely reactionless despite the door remaining open this entire time.

Whilst we consider what to do next, Edan question Kalgunn on what he thinks of the creatures in the facility. The sword-dwarf guesses that the four in the southern room are dwarven researchers who succumbed to disease at some point, unlike the others which were obviously test subjects, though he doesn’t know much more than that, as it wasn’t his area. Razumin was the administrator of the facility, and he doesn’t really know where his office would be, except that the facility has layered defenses and it would be undoubtedly be beyond them.

Agreeing to keep scouting as best we can, and potentially find more suits, we close the door to the south, and move to check each of the cardinal rooms. The east reveals a 60ft long hallway with nine doors some locked and some unlocked. Thorfus has the monkey check the closest room to the north, revealing a familiar looking set of residential quarters.

Closing the area and heading north reveals a square room with a tall ceiling that also contains a balcony, with familiar furniture to the southern room. Three infected creatures react as the doors open from up on the balcony, two rubbermen and one bony creature. The leap off of the balcony, the bony creature falling badly, and charge forwards, but the monkey is able to shut the door in thier faces. As it retreats however, the door quickly reopens, so Thorfus has the monkey retreat back south around to the west.

He opens the western ‘airlock’ to the portal, and steps through. The banging from before starts up from the one-way glass on the south-eastern wall. The three creatures charge down the corridor, stopping at the doorway, seemingly aware in someway. The bony creature seems restless even, and eventually moves out of view, but none of them want to enter the room. As the monkey watches, it can see the remnants of white cloth that may be similar to the robes from the bioforge.

Thorfus has the monkey reach for the button, which elicits a slight recoil from the creatures, speaking of some intelligence. He presses it, and the door closes, causing the metal globes to hum louder momentarily and scan the monkey, before the mist is released once again. After a moment, the door to the portal room enters.

Inspecting the slag piles reveals them to be made up of various metals, some precious, and Thorfus has the monkey drag them into the portal room, as some of it may be retrieval and worth something. He repeats this for the north and eastern ‘airlocks’.

Once done, the monkey is sent back through the south again, once more getting sprayed. Entering the corridor, he runs right back into the creatures again, so it retreats and presses the button again.

It seems we are trapped, so with the helmets from the enviromental suits and Chuq’s natural resistance, the two dwarves and the monk head through the portal. We ready up in the south room with ranged weapons. We get misted, and there is nothing there when the door opens, but with a shout, Axel draws the bony creature back to the door. It is met with arrows and daggers, and Axel’s second shot is able to bring it down.

As it falls, one of the rubbermen appears. Chuq sets his spear for a charge, whilst Axel and Thorfus continue to fire, though thier arrows seems to bounce off, seemingly harmlessly. Thorfus also has the monkey charge and attack the creature. The rubberman ignores the monkey and instead leans down and lifts the bony creature, then throws it at the pedestal as if trying to hit the button.

It misses luckily, and Axel retaliates with a well-placed firebomb, the oil splashing over both creatures. They recoil, their flesh melting slightly. Thorfus charges in alongside his monkey, and his sword manages to hurt the second creature, and we all move up into melee. We kill the one and hurt the other, but it steps back away from the door. We follow it out, continuing to draw ichor from it with every blow.

The creature falls back even further, hitting the button to the southern room and retreating within. Rather than follow it into the four creatures within, we elect to continue shooting it, which forces it to hide. The monkey gives chase, attacking it in the corner of the room, and the rotting creatures finally react, surrounding and attacking the tiny automaton.

It gets dismantled by a rain of rotten blows, so after another firebomb is tossed into the room, Chuq closes the door and Thorfus locks it. Thorfus turns around and pushes the rubberman corpse into the airlock, pushing the button with a ten-foot pole and incinerating the two corpses.

After that, we decide to head north to the room with the balcony. As we pass, Chuq’s ESP picks up a mess of confusion, hunger and the desire to destroy. In the north room, we decide to head through the door to the east, which opens into a hallway. The hallway curves around to the north, heading up some stairs and into a smaller room with double doors to the north and south. The tops of each wall have moving murals of double helixes combining and recombining.

In the centre of the room, a hologram shows a creature with a polyhedral head, cyclindrical body and six stringy tails, though there is no obvious projection point.

We check the southern door, revealing the now empty balcony, and lock the door, then repeat the action with the western door after confirming a corresponding staircase. The north double door is next, where Chuq senses a presence he describes as ‘a lot of crazy’.

Leaving that for now, we head down the west stairs, seeing the fungal creatures beyond a glass wall at the bottom. We decide to check the second door at the base of the stairs, which is locked. Chuq still senses crazy, and we can’t hear anything over the ambient humming. After a second of considering the facility’s layout, Axel realises the door opens directly into the creature’s pen.

We head back out into the circling corridor and try the door on the north-west interior wall. We hear nothing, and opening it reveals the other side of the mirrored walls of the ‘airlocks’. Several displays show the views from the domes, as well as access listings, noting the monkey’s usages of the doors. A pedestal holds a holographic display.

We check the pedestal, which displays some unknown language made up of odd icons, which at best we recognise a commonly recurring symbol that looks like an eyeball. Chuq mentally relays the symbols to Edan who confers with Kalgunn, who says it’s malfunctioning in some fashion. He recommends use of a PAS key, and in doing so, the pedestal flips over to Ancient Dwarven instead, with the following options.

-Review Readouts of Recent Beings in Cleansing Chamber

-Security Footage

-Manual Activation of Defences

-Door Lock

The logs correspond to the north and west airlocks, which mainly show the access of the monkey at several points, then the unauthorised access of a number of non-dwarven entities, which were destroyed, then more entries of passing dwarves. Both airlocks are the same roughly in logs, but northern has six dwarves enter the facility before the monkey but after the non-dwarves.

We head out to check the logs in what we presume are other rooms in the ring, stopping only to check the western door first. Scouting with the circlet, Thorfus picks up eight large automaton presences below us, which are four armed, treaded automatons plugged into the walls.

Thorfus takes control of one and sends it east, entering a long hallway with large number of various types of the humanoid creatures within. They retreat at the sight of the automaton, although Thorfus cannot detect any weapons on it. Checking with the automaton, it reveals itself as a ‘grappling unit’, designed to grab test subjects. We instantly begin planning how best to utilise it to our advantage.

Meanwhile, the Grappler is sent west, revealing the hall surrounds the central bay. Thorfus directs it to the south-west hoist, though it cannot get out of the pen there, so it gets redirected to the north-east hoist, where we can open the door safely, though there we realise it is too wide to get through the door.

We decide to test its grappling abilities, sending it down into the creatures below, and manage to catch one of the rubber creatures. We have the Grappler bring it up to us, and Chuq suggests testing thier odd intelligence by attempting to communicate with it. It recognises Thorfus’ Ancient Dwarven, but that seems only to focus its anger. Realising we’ll get nothing from it, Thorfus apologises and ends its life.

Session 94    February 2, 2016 

During the week Pons is training.

Kalgunn and Edan negotiate a deal. Kalgunn agrees to trains Edan on how to construct an Electrical Sphere Autonotom in exchange for historical tales of the Isles of Curabel. They assemble one but need a control cube to activate it. Kalgunn also suggests that if he was taken to one of the functioning flying scrying devices (about 200,000 feet) he might be able to locate the Conclave in Exile’s base. From this unknown location, he might be able to restore the entire network of scrying devices.

On the 28th of Faureldin, messages have returned from Midmark confirming Ryker’s identity. Canon Alaric Winterbergh from Midmark has arrived to vet Ryker, the two spend all their time debriefing. Marchmain then sends us a message that the patrols in the under city have been canceled and that Dorea he has asked the leadership in Xenilum Khel to allow the SilverThrone to guard and the Brotherhood of the Forge to administer the cultural treasures of Xen Khel.

Edan asks Kalgunn to help recover the chief engineer’s deleted records. Kalgunn confirms they are not accessible. He does explain that if one were to set the power controls for the engineering facility to overload, the entire facility would be lost to the molten earth depriving all the dependant facilities of all power. Anyone who did so could escape via the portal system, so long as their first destination had access to the outside. 

The Committee for Portal Reconnaissance Feasibility decides to shroud the Engineering portal room in Darkness then send an autonotom via the portal to the Bioforge Research Facility. The surface Boys gather our band together and head from the estate to the high peak temple. Several militia ask Thorfus if there might be a final libation before they ship out. Thorfus’ agreement is met with cheers from the blokes milling about. The sentry at the temple is now only five guards watching the sun drift across the sky. 

Collecting Derich, we all meet in the engineering facility. Our plan is enacted without casting darkness, instead we shroud the one strobe light in the portal room but the portal for D does not activate. Thorfus reactivates the power to D so that we can proceed. Our first look shows just a little damage to the octagonal room. Thorfus commands the monkey to step through the portal to look about. The monkey is greeted by a docile undying that invites the monkey to follow it westward. Thorfus keeps the monkey within control range which annoys the undying. It undoubtedly wants the monkey to follow to Marinthala’s office. 

When the monkey turns to leave, the undying utters ‘wait’ and the two stare at each other for some time. Eventually a pale islander holding a banner enters the hall way. His appearance is familiar to Thorfus. Noticing the open portal, he rushes towards it yelling at someone unseen that the portal is open. Thorfus has the monkey encourage him to enter so that we can capture him. Chuq’s mental probe is interrupted as the Islander stiffens. The islander speaks in ancient dwarven to the monkey asking who it serves. He asks if it serves the chief pathologists, engineer, botanist. Stating it doesn’t serve the same master, Thorfus looses control of the Monkey. Chuq then shuts the portal down as Thorfus rushes to the engineer’s office to deactivate all power to the Bioforge research.  

Now we open the portal to the Pathogen Research facility and send a single monkey to reconnoiter. The monkey exams doors to all cardinal points. Since the rooms beyond are all occupied by mounds of molten slag but the southern room, we instruct the monkey to enter the southern room. It is carpeted with ash. An arrhythmic pounding is heard from a mirrored wall to the west. The money presses the single button on the only pedestal, which causes the northern door to close, a shower to sprinkle followed by a burst of air. Then the southern door opens.  

Beyond is a 10’ wide corridor running perpendicular to the west & east. At either end are wall sized windows that become visible as lights in the corridor light. Behind the windows are mutated creatures throwing their bodies against the windows. The bony creatures to the west are fracturing their window. The monkey examines the opposing door to the south and sees beyond it another room with furniture, doors to other areas, plant boxes and four flesh sloughing humanoids loitering. What other secrets are hidden in this hell hole?

Session 89    December 30, 2015 

18th of Faurilden, 4:00 pm

Thorfus and Edan are healed before we searched around for traps and other nasty surprises. Feeling safe, we pocket the plans and turn our attention to the closet in the south. Within the closet we find a series of shells connected by pulley and chains. We collect a trove of precious gems from the shelves.

Mixed with the gems, we find two peculiar backpacks and 60 small metallic slugs. Play with a backpack shows that one actually becomes a pair of wings. It also looks like it needs one of the batteries we have for the power armor. The other backpack has a tank connected to a wand a hose. The packs are made for dwarves but the straps look long enough for a human, elf or power armored dwarfs to wear. The packs are stowed with the party gear without any further experimentation.

The slugs spur us to examine the cylinder robot that hurt our leader and our health. The robot has as many levered doors as the number of slugs we found. Confident the robot is safe without the slugs loaded into it, Edan pockets both cylinder robot and slugs in his gear.

We move further down the corridor to the east. The last south facing door opens easily. In the room there are a bed, a drafting table, foot locker, an information pedestal and closet in the south. The table and bed are empty. The door leads to a water closet with running water. 

The footlocker has a red light that turns green when Thorfus passes his platinum PAS key by it. Confidently, a robot monkey opens the foot locker’s lid causing the room to be bathed in darkness. At the same time, Boris falls away from the floor slamming into the ceiling above our heads. We hear the sound of breaking crumbling stone above us. Chuq brandishes his continually lighted Starchie Boyz badge. The darkness and the badge cancel each other, so that we can see by the light of our magic weapons and/or infravision. 

From the floor, we see Boris, the monkey, the footlocker and a Gargoyle sitting on the footlocker on the ceiling. The Gargoyle is belligerent, but not for long. It’s head shatters as Edan slaps his pommel against it. At it’s demise, the objects above fall back to the floor. 

The footlocker is locked again. We decide to play with it later and turn our attention to the information pedestal. The display above interactively tells us of the power connections from the Engineering sections with the other underground labs. It is implied by the schematic that the Engineering section is far below the others. We learn that “There is a power failure in the Bioforge Research area, maintenance needed”.  The other labs have stable power. A blinking point on the display refuses to give details. We are stymied by this message : “Information on this area not available without special clearance, please contact Xen Khel administrative for required permission” Thorfus’ platinum PAS key fails to grant us permission. 

Thorfus and Axel now take a few minutes to review the contents of the 13 different information cubes we have collected. Eventually they come upon a cube that reports on the occupants of the cells in the bioforge research lab. To our dismay, we learn that all the cells are empty and have been synchronized. Our failure to rescue them stings deep for some of us. We also learned the synchronization controls have failed, there is physical damage to the cells. Thorfus activates the reptile area pacification system several times, getting a kick from potentially shocking anonymous victims!

Thorfus uses his PAS key to change the footlocker display light to green but whenever we try to open the locker, the light turns red. Chuq suggests we find the last whereabouts of the Engineering Administrator deducing the necessary PAS Key would be on his person. 

After speaking with some autonotoms, we search to the west and find the Chief Engineers office after meeting several patrolling autonotoms and seeing a large open space occupied by a immense multi limbed robot repairing other regular sized autonotoms including undying. The Chief Engineer’s corpse rest here, sitting next to a desk similar to the Bioforge Chief’s desk. The desk allows us to deactivate the ‘Swarm’, view personal recordings, control the shutters & the master power! Grasped in his cold hand is another platinum PAS key. True to form, Thorfus ensures the PAS key goes from the dead hand directly into his.

Searching the desk, we find a some loot. One item of note is a wooden box that gives Edan the willies when he handles it. Later we learn the box is enchanted to rattle when a lie is told. We also find a glowing dagger, a wrought gold head band and a pair of bracers. Later these items secrets are also learned. The head band negates mind reading and sending for the wearer and the ‘My Fortress’ bracers keep the wearer protected when the embossed golden runes are traced by a finger. Chuq pockets the bracers and Edan keeps the headband on his formerly bare head.

Thorfus uses the new platinum PAS key to access the chief engineers desk controls. We learn the ancient dwarven letters for the various Xen Khel research areas:

D – Bioforge Research Facility

C – Mechanical Research Facility

F – Engineering & Power Facility

G – Pathogen Research Facility

X – Special Research Facility

For each letter, we can cut off power completely, set the power to a percentage or cut off power completely from the desk.

He then reads the remaining recordings of Kalgun Thrust. The recordings tell the story of Kalgun’s last days during the rebellion. He ensured the rebels would not learn anything if engineering fell to them by deleting all but his last recordings from his desk and information reliquary. He set the counter measures that incinerated anyone that enters the facility. He expresses his surprise and disdain of the rebels (‘former slaves’) elementary use of Tran spatial energy. Realizing engineering was woefully isolated, he tooks steps to ensure power to the other facility wass maintained indefinitely to so that they can continue their work well after he and his staff pass away from hunger or more nefarious reasons.

Now we want to know where engineering is located in relationship with the other underground facilities. We extinguish all light sources and cover ourselves so that we may open the shutters and view our location without revealing ourselves. Our prep was for naught, the vista we see is totally unexpected. Instead of the giant mushroom forest cavern we see a hell-scape of magma lakes and erupting lava geysers. The base of the mountain is alive with molten rock (continental drift be damned). Realizing the engineering facility is a death trap for the unsuspecting Finkelworm, Chuq advises So Krates to alert his master to halt his downward tunneling. Obviously we are far below the Bioforge and what we suspect is the Pathogen facilities. 

We debate the merits of severing the power to the last know location of the Dark King’s forces, the Bioforge facility. It is decided to do so, hoping that if anyone is forced to escape into the mushroom cavern, the trip would be very perilous to them. Thorfus does a quick strobe for shits and giggles and shuts the shutters. We lock the door as we leave with Chuq’s silver PAS key.

Returning to the trapped foot locker, it opens without incident after Thorfus uses our new platinum PAS key. Within are broaches, headbands, gems, jewelry, scroll case (summons an elemental) and a glowing long sword. Feeling the scroll case is not trapped, Edan determines the scroll within summons an elemental. Edan dons the new headband and Chuq can no longer read his mind. When Edan swops the new for his other band, his mind is legible to Chuq. Noticing the new long sword glows brighter than swords in his possession, Edan draws the new sword aversively. He feels the sword try to probe his mind. In ancient Dwarven it telepathically asks to his identity, asking for a Kalgun. 

We discuss who among us can endure an intelligent sword and realize the only candidate is Edan. The sword switches different tongues until it begins speaking an archaic version of Elvish. The two begin to converse in earnest. Though insulting and condescending, Edan strokes the swords ego into sharing much about the ancient dwarves. We learn the soul is that of the Chief Engineer’s grandfather, also known as Kalgunn, the ancient empires greatest engineering mind (as he styles himself). Surprised to hear of Marchmain Sithis notoriety in this age, we learn Kalgunn regards him as a rival. He blames the fall of the Empire to hacks like Marchmain, his grandson and Merinthala. 

Edan mentions that Dragons have not been seen in ages which prompts Kalgunn the Elder to hint that one can be found in area X, the special project area! Confirming what we already suspect, he also states we need all four administrator access stones to gain entry to area X where we might see ‘her’ (!the dragon emperor consort!).

Sheathing the sword, we discuss how best to use Kalgunn’s knowledge – realizing Edan can not compel him to cooperate. Edan adopts Kalgunn as his primary weapon (tacitly blessed by our malevolent Overlord). When asked, Kalgun says he is designed specifically to defeat magic and enchanted foes. Their second conversation drifts from early magic users (originally only the dwarves) to the fall of the Crystal Tower. We learn the rebels had “burned away” Xen Teler’s mind. Also, Xen’Khel was their first settlement and that all the dwarfs ultimately are from Xen Teler. We don’t comprehend his actual meaning since he is evasive on the subject. Kalgun is fascinated by the fact that some magic users claim to derive their powers from ‘deities’.

Kalgunn has answered many questions but mostly he taught us we know very little. We sit down to catalogue what else we want to ask him…