Session 110
Towards the end of the week of Edan’s training with Aldus Runnelbrook, the party continued to take advantage of the downtime.
Canis
Canis was able to pick up his new, bone-studded armour from Orsabet, dropping off the Spider-Gorilla leather he had gathered to potentially make the repair of the magical leather easier.
He spends the rest of the week training his new pets with magical assistance. Swoop and Wing for scouting and message-delivery purposes, and Zak the dog for guard duty and close-combat support. The Jaguar cub he named shadow, and other than talking to it, tried to train the feline to simply trust him.
Ronan
Ronan, in the mean time, headed off to the gambling hall we once saw Sthorm enter, a supposed front for the Mad Dogs. Heading straight to the bartender, he asked directly for the dwarf, and left a message that he wanted to speak to him. As he is speaking, a figure comes from a balcony and whispers to the bartender, asking Ronan to come upstairs to speak to someone.
Following them, Ronan is brought to a large, yet well-kept Half-Orc. The Half-Orc, Gartrim, asks what Ronan wants with Sthorm. Gartrim is aware of the job Ronan was sent on, and tells him not to worry, as it’s all been settled up. They seem fairly aware of Ronan’s comings-and-goings within the city.
Gartrim asks Ronan to take a look at the gamblers below, and spins a tale. He thought that when he met Ronan, that he was a smart guy, but all the people below, risking it to make a big prize. He likens them to adventurers. Whether they win or lose however, they go to Rolf the bartender, to drown thier sorrows or celebrate. Rolf, he says, is like the Mad Dogs, the tax collectors, and the Greycloaks. He thought Ronan had chosen better.
The Mad Dog also reveals that the issue with the knock-off Dog’s Froth won’t be one much longer, especially now that the benefactor in Vargen had met with a sticky end. Finally, he gives Ronan a tip, aware that we might be going on a sea-voyage sometime soon, and suggests that we should visit the old man living on a houseboat in the middle of Midland Bay, anchored near the wreck of the Silver Toed Strumpet.
With a final promise that he can return if he wants ‘more-fulfilling’ work, Ronan leaves and returns to the Cock and Bull. He asks Canis to send one of his pigeons to scout the Houseboat, which it does and replies that it is where it said was.
Edan
During his evenings, Edan spent his time working on the circlet and cube we retrieved from the cloaked figure with Kalgunn’s help. He needs to speak to someone so he can gain access to a forge if he wants to go through with it. Edan can also can do it himself, at Kalgunn’s preference, but with a chance for catastrophic failure that could be avoided if he can trust a skilled smith to perform the work for him.
He also spends some time working on his plans for a flight-capable boat. He spends some time brainstorming with Kalgunn about creating a manual control mechanism for automaton’s, to save the reliance on a control circlet. Kalgunn himself had mused over the idea, but believes Edan would need a large amount of the metal. He would also need a dragon to be even able to shape the metal.
On this subject, Edan learns that the dwarves once had a number of chained dragons for this specific purpose. The Dragon Consort, Prixithalmus was one of these before the Rebellion. He also learns that a Crystal circlet is the highest in the hierarchy, making it several steps above Thorfus’ Silver one. Gold was also a rare substance in Ancient Dwarven crafting, enough that Kalgunn was unsure of it’s place in the hierarchy.
One issue that remains for Edan is that without more cubes and at least one more circlet, he cannot be sure that they can lock a cube to a single circlet without interference from others.
Several nights later, he brings Kalgunn to Aldus. They discuss the sword, and how to potentially make him talk. Aldus expresses disbelief that Kalgunn can only hear through touch-enabled telepathy, and can frankly hear everything.
This only seems to compound the doubts Edan already had, but also instills a reluctance to push the sword to talk, since doing so could prevent Edan’s partnership in building new technology. He believes that if Kalgunn knew and could do more, he had ample oppurtunity back in our time in the facilities and Area X.
They decide to forego the interrogation, and Edan merely allows Aldus to talk to Kalgunn normally. He does ask Kalgunn if he can speak out loud at all, to which Kalgunn replies that as before, he cannot.
On seeing the sword, Aldus confirms Kalgunn’s claims that his blade-form is effective against users of transpatial energy. The Dwarven Runes on the sword actually conform to alchemical symbols, fire, earth, water, air and magic, which he believes gives the sword its power, in that it severs the links between user and magic. Knowing Aldus knows this, Kalgunn agrees that he is ‘worthy’.
Thorfus
Thorfus breaks out the scrying mask to check back on Xen’Khel. The first thing he notices is that the mask is showing Midmark as default, an option we hadn’t had before. An notice appears:
‘Administrative Override activated from Control Centre. Remote access to high-altitude scrying orb being shut down in 3… 2… 1…’
Once the countdown is complete, it searches for a signal and finds Xen’Khel’s, returning to an image of the mountain. The Upper City seems much as we left it, so he switches to the view of Lonely Isle. The Island remains busy as before, particularly around the docks, and the encampment seems to have grown. He spends some time looking for the Flaming Princess and Dusty Gnome, but there is no sign of Grell at this time.
Upon hearing about the orb in high-altitude, Canis sends one of his pigeons as high as it can fly. Swoop returns without seeing anything however, though apparently basically touched the sun.
Asking Kalgunn about the Control Centre, Edan relays that the Conclave in Exile would have had it. The location of the Conclave was secret however, defended by the Lord Marshall. Such sites would not appear on Edan’s map, and whilst the fact that the scrying of Midmark was blocked is a clue, it could be that was just because of the Lord Marshall’s last location.
Thorfus also tracks down Mortimer at the docks, asking the dwarf about Agmar’s Folly. After claiming he knew Thorfus would go onto great things way back, he says that the place his merely a hideout of for pirates and Imperials, apparently. He’d never sent an expedition there however, despite plenty of of old Imperial forts to explore, he believes that it’d probably been picked clean. He may do so soon though. On passing his condolences for Desric, Mortimer also reveals that Gierman is in town, though he is unsure where.
Heading to the Community House of the Brotherhood of the World Forge, Thorfus speaks to Father Alair and asks about Gierman’s location, though they are similarly unsure.
Chuq
Chuq finished up his interviews for new henchman, granting the wizard Giacomo the Mea’Khel Bracers. He also spends time in the week conversing with Canis’ menagerie.
Accompanying Edan to Aldus in order to get his skullcap identified properly, Chuq asks the sage about Agmar’s Folly. It was named for a follower of Baldric, who had been overthrown by one group or another depending on the story. Aldus was actually responsible for assisting Agmar find a good location for the settlement.
Aldus inspects his skullcap, and is able to tell Chuq that it is a ‘Helm of Telepathy’ with a 60′ range. He is able to hear the thoughts of anything with, providing he can understand them. It can be blocked by solid lead or a quarter foot of iron. He also says there seems to be some odd force within the helm. Chuq relays his experience with Marchmain and the odd dreamscape to the sage, and admits to having smelled flowers and heard voices since the event, though Aldus cannot claim to know what that means.
Chuq wonders if he has some intelligence present within the helm, and asks Aldus to try and communicate with it. When he does, suddenly Aldus is on the other side of the room with his hands up and Chuq can smell flowers. Reportedly, Chuq had yelled at him to get his hands of him, scaring the old sage, but Chuq has no memory of this.
Aldus points out that he does not trust the helm. It seems enough to prompt Chuq to see if he cannot get the helm removed. He speaks to the other party members about this, and we agree to accompany him to the Ark Temple to get it removed.
On arrival, the clerics there apologise to him for not being able to speak to the masters of his order. He believes it is fishy, and relays as such to the party. In the mean time, he asks the cleric if they can remove the skullcap and heal his head. Canis offers to assist with the procedure.
The cleric takes us to the residence of the partriarch, and on the way Chuq reads her thoughts that she believes him to be as good as dead. She leads the party past Sturgard’s statue, to a nice house where a well-dressed cleric is waiting. The patriarch agrees to the do the procedure, for the cost of 6000GP enlisting Thorfus and Ronan to help hold Chuq down whilst the monk enters a trance.
For insurance, we also tie Chuq down, and worryingly enough the partriarch grabs a crowbar. Chuq offers him a magical dagger instead, which seems safer. The process is long, bloody and terrifying, obviously causing Chuq a lot of pain. The partriarch cuts the skin from around the edges, Canis and the clerics healing as he does so. Finally, he uses the crowbar to pry it off his head with a sickening sound, cracking the top of Chuq’s skull. The partriarch himself then casts Heal, completely healing all the damage done and repairing the bone.
Eventually, Chuq wakes up feeling lighter and feeling better. The partiarch seems shocked that Chuq still has his faculties, and excuses himself to go rest.
After cleaning the skullcap out, Chuq returns to Aldus with it. The sage doesn’t believe that the presence is anything to do with the item’s power. Merely holding the item doesn’t seem to garner a reaction, so Chuq pays for an identify, to which Aldus can confirm the item will still function as a Helm of Telepathy. As a test, Ronan offers to don the skullcap, but it merely causes him to pass out, so Chuq finally puts it back on, confirming its functionality.
After blindfolding and binding Chuq again, Aldus feels safe enough to probe the skullcap again. They can communicate just fine, but is unable to detect another presence.
Party
We head up to see Lord Thornton, asking at the doors of the courthouse, Thorfus announces himself as Thorfus of the Baldric’s Boys. This seems enough to gain audience with Lord Thornton, which we do within what seems to be Judge Grell’s old office. We offer him purchase of a number of magical items, and he agrees to meet us late at night to go over them at his home.
We also ask him to keep hold of several items we wish to be kept safe whilst we go sailing, which he agrees to lock up. He decides not to burden us with his woes over current events, like the upcoming meeting of the Marks.
Later that night, we sell a suit of Power Armour to Thornton, and leave a number of Information Cubes and other dwarven technology in his care.
On the morning after Edan’s training completed, the 22nd of Jourilden, the party gathers with thier hirelings at the docks. After spending some coin and breaking out some of the magical gear to better equip them all, we met the Captain of the Bitter Horse.
He tells us that several of our men would need to be shipped on other boats, and also that Admiral Dyconson would be accompanying us, but would not be in command of the mission. He also asks us to confirm that mission would be to capture Grell alive, as that would be better for public justice.
Perette arrives and tells us that a number of bodies have been discovered with cubes in thier skulls, fifteen found in total, spread out across the city. Roughly in time with when Thorfus used the scrying mask, they were discovered because they suddenly collapsed, all of them in the vicinity of some guardhouse or watchtower. They cannot be sure they found them all however. As he leaves, Perette is seen inspecting his men’s heads beneath thier cloaks.
The fleet we are gathered on is five ships strong, led by the Bitter Horse. The captain seems perturbed by the number of animal’s present, but welcomes us aboard and promises us easy sailing. He tells us we will be passing the Merfolk city, home of Narusth, and also the Hammer of Merendur, a rocky outcropping that makes booming sounds.
We sail south, heading past the easternmost penisula, which is apparently the safest, as the Merfolk here are the ones not allied with the Devilfish. We will arrive at Agmar’s Folly on the 25th. It seems smooth sailing for the first day, passing out onto open water.
On the morning of the second day, we witness a giant turtle surfacing near the ships that follows us for a while. Canis communicates with it, asking about the waters and explaining boat names, before asking about Grell and his ‘flying’ ship. The turtle, Penn, tells him that it’d seen Grell’s ship pass into the bay and back out, accompanied by two regular ships.
On the trip Edan identifies the Merendur artifacts. The bowl is cursed so that any who attempt to use it get shrunk and pulled in, drowning them. The cloak is powerful, and should the wearer be submerged in water, they would be transformed into a mantaray, but keeping thier arms.
By the 24th, the captain comes to us and says that will arrive by the afternoon the following day. He plans to have some of his ships go in, spearheaded by the Bitter Horse, whilst the rest head around to the otherside of the outcropping guarding the bay’s entrance to blockade them in.
We begin planning our attack, discussing the best way to scout, and also the benefits of shadow-stepping onto the outcropping. We think about sailing in on a morning, using the sun as cover. This could potentially develop into us stepping onto and subverting one of Grell’s ships. Canis’ spells of Obscurement and Warp Wood, as well as simply being Lightning artillery, to block and damage Grell’s ships are put forwards as options also.
Chuq heads out on the final evening before arrival with the cloak to scout the location from underwater.
