Month: July 2016

Session 117

27th Jourilden, 2:50pm

We continued to clash with the undead, underwater monstrosities. Thorfus and Chuq are bloodied, and the dwarf and Canis are about to find themselves in a difficult situation.

In an effort to deal with the bigger nasties, Edan stepped forward and begins a chant to cast a Lightning Bolt. Thorfus deigns to keep on fighting, in a effort to see if we can win. So with arrow, hammer, sword and monkey claw we laid into the enemies. Unfortunately the advancing automonkeys draw sight on even more creatures approaching from around a corner, alerting Thorfus to thier presence. In response, our fearless leader beheads the humanoid in front of him, followed by Edan unleashing a bolt of lightning into the troll and spider, killing the latter.

Whilst we keep fighting, how illustrious wizard switches from lightning to ice, dropping a sheet of it onto the troll, though the beast seems to power through it and merely tries to smash a monkey with its fists. From the east, a number of sea urchins roll into view.

Simultaneously, the humanoids, including the headless one begin repeating the words ‘No Escape’ over and over, the troll growling a long with it. In his head, Chuq mentally picks up part of a conversation in Ancient Dwarven, and he quickly passes it on to Thorfus and Edan to translate…

[Insert Speech Here]

Shards of glass rain down on Chuq, but he preternaturally avoids getting cut to shreds by them. Another burst of shattering glass comes from above Giacomo, who is less fortunate. From above, eight searching tentacles drop towards the party, presumably the appendages of the giant squid. Chuq quickly grabs Edan and Ronan, stepping behind the troll to relative safety, where Ronan is able to bring it down with his bastard sword. The tentacles grab the nearest targets available, wrapping up a monkey and Giacomo.

Thorfus steps forward and slams the door shut, quaffing a healing potion at the same time before trying to reason with the voice, calling out in Ancient Dwarven. He asks why they attack, that we aren’t there to cause trouble. In the other room, the captured monkey lashes out, but gets crushed tighter by the tentacle before the creature’s giant beak simply crushes the automaton. Other tentacles simply begin beating on the door or smashing more of the glass, dropping more creatures in.

In the corridor, the urchins begin firing spines at the automonkeys, though in the chaos of combat only succeed in skewering the human, who the monkeys bring down moments later.

The squid succeeds in bashing down the door behind us, sending the entire thing smashing into the desk moments after Thorfus moved away. Three tentacles reach in afterwards, just feet away from being able to hit us, but instead grab the desk a simply smack Canis with it. Luckily for the Druid, the old furniture is brittle enough to simply break around him without causing much damage.

Over the battle, Edan hears a voice say, “Interesting, not dwarf. It doesn’t even understand.”

Whilst several party members deal with the nearest dead creatures by dismembering and seperating the body parts, Edan moves over to unleash a cone of cold from the wand at the tentacles and creatures beyond the door. The blast of freezing cold air withers the three tentacles in the door way, and as they drop, we can see two more as well as several merfolk have been similarly affected. The tentacles crack and shatter off of the rest of the squid.

Moments later, there is a blast of dust and debris, which clear to reveal the statue of the dragon having fallen through the ceiling alongside the main body of the squid. For it’s troubles it merely gets another Cone of Cold from Edan’s wand. To the east, Canis, Thorfus and the monkeys keep fighting off of the undead underwater menagerie.

Angered at all the magic blasting through the door at it, the squid lashed out with a tentacle and grabbed Edan, despite Canis’ best efforts. A second tentacle grabs a broken monkey, taking it away, whilst a third grabs Ronan. A third Cone gets blasted from Edan’s free arm, shattering more of the creature’s tentacles. It’s shell pitted and scarred, laced with frozen water, Chuq and Ronan let loose a flurry daggers and arrows, a final arrow from Ronan finally splitting the squid’s shell. It’s throes of pain knock the statue of XenoTel, causing it fall onto the beast, crushing the life out of it.

“So you survived. You should come and see us.” The voice says to Chuq, now in stilted and broken Common.

He asks for directions, but get no response, so we take the time to collect ourselves. The two undead Imperials only carried what they wore, armour and robes. In one of the rooms, we find some more research notes. Giacomo’s corpse is recovered, as are the broken monkeys, one of which is currently beyond repair.

After an hour, we start branching out to continue exploration, finding more dormitory rooms and a privy. Another tapestry depicts the Dragon Emperor on his throne, with two entwined Red Dragons above. At the end of one corridor, we find a room with a pool similar to the room where we found the odd vehicle, this one empty. Attempting to use the controls is met with no reaction, evidently there is no power in this room either. We leave the room and spike the door.

Returning to the central chamber, we decide to look at the eastern door next. Chuq feels wild frustrated emotions and hears banging beyond the door. The room beyond appears to be a kitchen of some kind, bearing similarities to kitchens in Xen’Khel. A creature with a humanoid torso and squid-like lower half is pinned by tridents, allowing Chuq to easily dispatch it.

Still detecting similar emotions to the east, and still hearing banging, Chuq leads the way there, whilst Edan checks the cupboards, finding petrified foods. Any of the food preparation machinery seems to have been gutted.

Down a hallway, the banging seems to be coming from the first door, and only dies down as we move around, preparing for battle. Popping the door, we see a monstrosity of flesh and scales. It rolls out of the door, simply barrelling over the automonkeys, Thorfus and Ronan, tendrils and appendages wrapping around them.

Chuq retaliates by smashing bottles of holy water into the abomniation’s hide. Ronan, trapped practically inside it, desperately tries to cut his way out, Canis attempting to assist.  A flurry of blows from Thorfus and the automonkeys cut away a lot of appendages, but it continues to writhe around for a short while more before the sheer number of blows down the creature.

As it falls to a stop, we notice a large number of items either caught up in the mass or worn by appendages within; stones, scroll cases, scraps of clothing and rings. We collect the items and look into the room it came from, which appears to have been a storeroom of some kind, with shelves lining the walls.

The Sahuagin who come to gather the thing’s body seem to be averting thier gazes, refusing to meet our eyes.

The final room is also seemingly empty. A single human corpse is hanging from a grate in the ceiling by the neck. His body is covered with tattoos, very much like a Dervish’s. It is currently swinging about the room, reaching out for us as it does so. Oddly, we notice that but for the odd length, the rope hanging it appears for all the world to be made of hair which glows slightly in the dim lighting. Knowing we need to be careful about how we deal with this, we ponder a course of action.

Session 116 July 7, 2016

10:30 am 27th of Joureldon, in the larger dome where we first met the Sahuagin fighting the undead.

Cannis and Chuq supervise the shark men removing the undead pinned to the walls. They establish a butchering spot south of the marked animation line near the cafeteria. A monkey autonotom notices crabmen to the north who quickly take note of us. The pair are felled easily. Then Chuq and Ronan discover a flailing sea lion behind another door to the north. It bloodies their noses before falling to Thorfus’ sword.

Ronin discovers notes about the Sword of Dagon. We meander about to allow Edan the time to copy text from the crumbling aged papers. We explore a diving well room north easterly adjacent to the dome. Above the pool of sea water is a 10’ x 20’ metal cigar shaped tube suspended by chains attached to the ceiling. It has fans on one end and a clear window on the opposite end of a downward facing hatch. There is a panel on the eastern wall of this room that has five unlit buttons.

Markings on the cigar attract Edan’s attention. He consults Kalgunn who identifies the word Telergy as some sort of sigil for a specific group of Ancient Dwarves. Kalgunn explains Telergy (or Xeno Telergy) was short hand for a group that used the ancient dwarven metal found in circlets, cubes and portals to control living things. They had a complimentary group that used the same metal to control constructs like monkey, repair and assembly autonatoms. This other group was known as Xeno Teler.

Continuing our exploration when Edan is done, we find a man with the face of a manta ray. Once he sees us, he begins to casts a spell. A hail of missiles and blows ends his days. Another silver inquistor mask falls off its skull, which we pocket. We find his spell book(s), a silver passkey and notes that talk of an imperial discovery and exploration of the domes. There was minimal power at that time. The Imperials found mad devil fish elders in containment which shortly died. They conducted more experiments on freshly caught devil fish. Eventually, the Imperial researchers went mad and had to be put down.

The notes mention that the containment would not be taken off line until further notice, likely to keep something dangerous sequestered. Other notes talk of the promising nature of the sonic explosive in another dome and their intent to use the manufactory facility to make more devices. Seems the imperials where planning to turn on the manufacturing machines a next morning but we deduce the written rumor of Baldrich Evekeel learning of the research domes when he had captured the Dervish Citadel on Lonely Isle put a timely stop to that plan.

Edan reads the following Spells in the book(s):

1st: Jump; Friends; Shocking Grasp; Magic Missile; Read Magic

2nd: Mirror Image; Web; Invisibility; Darkness 15’ Radius

3rd: Haste; Fireball

Monkeys are tasked with repairing the lift doors in the undead magician’s room so that we aren’t surprised. Ronan climbs the lift shaft to peer at the floor directly above. He sees a dead withered garden centered with a giant heroic statue of a dwarf champion standing over a vanquished sinuous winged dragon. The garden is capped by the crystal of the underwater dome. Draped over the statue is a giant squid, no doubt undead. Strewn about the garden are about 10 flopping undead beached Mermen.

When asked, Kalgunn tells us that the statue is Xeno Tel standing victorious Lysander the green dragon, a common motif for Imperial Statuary. After the monkeys have repaired the lift door, we return to the central cafeteria to explore further west. The squid and Merman seem more than we can chew at this time.

Imagine our surprise as we leap upon a lonely undead man behind a deak, he survives our initial assault and is quickly joined by a horde of undead creatures. Oh, and they brought a sea troll.

Session 115 July 13th, 2016

6:00pm 26th of Jourelden – surrounded by sharks and Sahaugin (shark men).

Later the next day, we learn our attendant Shark Man is named Sah-Jin. He arrives shortly after Ronan’s victim is chum in the water. Miming at the party and repeatedly pointing at our sleeping druid, Cannis, it appears he wants us all to sleep while his brethren munch on the soon to be dead Gooter the Kaligan slaver. After our slumber, somehow, we will then speak with Carchus and a shark man lord/leader. Sah-Jin’s attention makes Gooter uneasy. We are loath to giving another man over to them. Well, that is all of us except Ronin. Feigning our possible heroic intervention, Thorfus encourages Gootter to talk to save his own skin.

Gooter talks about Alain Grell’s plan to sell the experimental vessel to SilverThrone but they weren’t interested. It is curious that they didn’t feel the need to keep the propulsion method out of the empire’s clutches. Grell had called the experimental vessel the ‘Wrath of the Waves’ though we didn’t notice any armament or armor on board her. About a dozen independent pirate ships and crews that plague the waters about Angmar’s Folly were ostensibly allied with Alain. His personally commanded fleet was five vessels that included the Cranky Archer & the Pale Hydra (both likely lost during the Empire’s naval attack).

Gooter describes a tall, skinny, old, white goateed man with a cultivated accent known as the Gardener, no doubt an Imperial contact who had enlisted the dervish assassins responsible for Thorrell’s murder. Chuq shares Gutter’s personal impression of the Gardener with Thorfus, who recognizes the man as Jardin. Gootter claims the Gardener sails under sails with the Red Crescent, an Imperial sigil.

Pragmatically, Chuq explains the mortality of Gooter’s imminent future and offers the Boys will hear his last words and consider fulfilling any last wishes. Gootter says his last words and asks that his soon to be widow, Virginia be comforted. Since Thorrell is now dead, any potential solace will only likely come from us. At best we might visit her closure if we find ourselves back in Vargen. Edan ends the interview by stabbing Gutter with a dagger at the top of his spine. The body drops below our pen as a shiver of young shark kids frenzy over the still warm body. Sah-Jin expresses pride over the antics of one of the kids, sharing images of it’s cannibalistic origins with Chuq.

The party spends the next few hours waiting on Carchus’ return. Some sleep while Chuq and Thorfus keep watch. During this time, Chuq speaks with a random shark. We learn the local shaman shark man, Sha-Ki has foretold of land dwellers cleansing the ‘bad water’ for Dagon’s children. Unfortunately the local lore doesn’t have a parallel to the Mahdi, so Chuq fails to persuade the sharks he is the actual true Voice of Dagon.

Edan’s rest is uneasy though. When he wakes, his mind is distracted by wailing and lamentations of being shut from the world within a dark quite chest. He grumbles about other fantastic visions but doesn’t share the details with us, his only true friends.

Eventually Chuq senses the overly proud and chipper sand shark arrive within the dome. Not long after that, Sah-Jin delivers more water breathing corrals to the party. The party swims to an enclosure hugging the southern dome wall where we meet Carchus and the aforementioned Sha-Ki, the shark man lord imagined by Sah-Jin. Carchus and Chuq interpret so that Sha-Ki and the Boyz can parley. As per the random shark’s story, Sha-Ki expects us to ‘clean the bad water’ in exchange for the sword of Dagon, which he expects us to ‘to conguer the surface in the name of Dagon’.

The sword of Dagon is a large lozenge suspended over the floor by chains in the room we are in. Based on our visual inspection and Sha-Ki’s answers, we deduce the Sword of Dagon is actually an ancient Dwarven underwater sonic weapon (more like a mine or bomb) and that this particular dome is not only a testing/proving ground but also a manufactory for the weapon. We attempt to parley not only the sword but the entire dome as payment for our services, but Sha-Ki is reticent to abandon the Dagon’s ‘promise land’. We plant the seed that they just might have to if we are expected to fulfill the ‘conquer the surface in the name of Dagon’ part of the prophecy. The ‘bad water’ as described is undoubtedly another Kaligan/BioForge undead curse, albeit possibly the largest we have encountered to date. Confident we are the men for the job, we agree to cleanse the water after suggesting the Shark Men turn over all terrestrial items they found when settling within the domes. Sha-Ki agrees to the logic that Dagon likely left those items for our benefit. Besides clothing and other trifles, the shark men hand over a small fortune in imperial platinum coins and statuaries.

Edan and Kalgunn examine the sonic weapon, learning a bit of its inner workings, controls and likely usage/testing here in this dome. They interview Carchus about the adjacent tunnel and the sea floor beyond the tunnel. They figure the tunnel leads to a proving ground for the weapon. Carchus description tells that the weapon indiscriminately effects everything in a very large radius. After Carchus mentions a fresh attack on the Midmark navy moored in the hidden bay, we decide Chuq should return topside to assess their condition.

Using his cloak of the manta ray and shadow stepping, Chuq covers the distance ahead of Carchus. Bellisonte and Captain Evenwode tell that while the Bitter Horse was answering a call for help from the Dirty Maid north of the hidden cove, Sea Hags and Trolls boarded the Javelin and slew the entire crew. Worse even, the Bitter Horse wasn’t able to save the Dirty Maid from an assault of undead sharks and shark men. She sunk with a great loss of life. Also, Humprey the cleric has not been seen since yesterday and presumed missing.

Understandably, Captain Evenwode holds the party responsible since his fleet is waiting for either a high tide or our help to free the Wrath of the Waves. Chuq’s assurances that the party is trying to fix the undead problem fall on deaf ears. The captain does agree to the suggestion that the fleet and mercs abandon the cove at dusk to spend the night in safer waters. Pons has ‘volunteered’ to hide in the tower every night on the beach. It’s hoped he will use his hiding skills to observe the beach overnight and alert the returning fleet and mercs if trouble is afoot in the morning.

While the monk is away, the party prepares for our assault. Our monkeys are repaired via the material littered in the dome and more water breathing corral is collected. We set off the next morning joined by a shark man clean up crew and Carchus after Sha-Ki has blessed us all by anointing our persons with fresh killed meat. Funny how their idea of success tends to include red salty water….