Session 157 – May 31, 2017 – : Westward Ho!

Session 157 – May 31, 2017 – : Westward Ho!

We decided to head west and try to find the cloning facility rather than try to kidnap people or convince kobolds to sacrifice themselves.

6AM 21st of MazRelden 00.00.00.00.03.24

Kotar and Prix will travel on the Barge rather than on the skiff, while Mariantaxis will fly – he says that touching the carbon material is painful to dragons – likely the reason their cages were effective in keeping them in check.

Edan takes control of the skiff and guides the ship – about 45ft up – and travels along the valley towards where we think the Cloning Lab is.

Thorfus speaks to Sarathos using the broachie-talkie – confronting him about the “insanity” he caused. Thorfus wants to know if he can reverse the damage – apparently Sarathos can, but by individual. Sarathos doesn’t seem to think reviving prix is a bad idea – considers her wiser than her “mate” … he wouldn’t mind speaking with her should we be successful. Alone – of course.

We suspect that someone else may be listening in through the talkie-broachie, but Sarathos says he can’t detect anyone else listening in on our devices. Putting on ESP circlet or ring dampens the buzzing sound, but it isn’t eliminated.

We place the skull cap, broachie-talkies and the scrying mask in Edan’s Strong Box for it’s “blocking” ability just in case. NOTE: It’s just a plain waterproof foot locker, not sure where they got this idea, but if it makes them feel better then who am I to argue – at least it’s wizard locked.

The Valley between the mountains heading westward is fairly barren – but we can see jungle in the distance.

About 40 minutes in – we begin to reach the jungle – and then suddenly we feel like we’ve just been attacked. An explosion happens – the skiff’s batteries explode (Stissa is blown away) and we fall to our doom. Edan attempts to slow the impact with Levitate while Chuck and Harb shadow step to safety. The rest of the crew scramble to the back of the ship to avoid the brunt of the hit.

Mariantaxis attempted to catch the ship, or at least Prix, but was unsuccessful even with Ronan’s attempt to throw him a line.

Despite the efforts – the damage is bad – we lost Stissa, Adrelle, Fyarin and Eva – and we’ve all taken a beating.

Thorfus has the monkeys retrieve our chests and cas while Edan attempts to asses the damage to the engine.

As we recover – 5 creatures come out the ground, Vilstrak, the stone-like insects that immediately attack the Mechanical Monkeys.

We defeat the Vilstrak and have one of the monkeys remove the battery and place it far away. It’s smoking and we then bury it, stopping the smoke. Ronan manages to loot some gems from the Vilstrak lair we landed on.

Edan determines that one of the power chambers was damaged, but the others seem to be fine. As a test, we place the spare battery in the powercell and the barge lifts a foot, enough to inspect the damage – we also notice that the battery rattles much like the previous one so we assume it’s also sabotaged in some way. The barge is sound, but it won’t float. After a short discussion we decide to move the ship closer to the jungle so that the monkey can affect repairs in order to make it water worthy incase we need to make a landing again.

While we prepare – Stissa wakes up and we hear distant colonial drums approaching from the east. Lambertus checks her wounds and he’s amazed she’s not really injured. She’s really alive and doesn’t seem to be freaked out. She doesn’t know how she survived. Very suspicious as this is the 2nd major “incident” she has survived without injury.

We ask Mariantaxis if he’s noticed anything about her. He tells us that he hasn’t really looked at our camp followers, but after hearing what has happened agree to inspect her. As he approaches her, he immediately finds out she’s not what she seems – and before he can swat her she shadow steps away towards the jungle (we assume).

We discover that the mirror is magical, and likely was being used to track and listen to our conversation. Mariantaxis is worried, if the Emperor knows we have Prix – he’ll come to claim her, likely with a horde of other dragons. BBQ Anyone?

Ronin plans to misdirect our pursuers by faking a change of plan and then get a bird to fly around with the mirror.

We lure a bird and with whom Chuck tries to negotiate to have it carry it away. After some cajoling he manages to convince the little guy to take it away.

We head west towards our goal as low as we can, and quickly come across a fight. We listen and it seems to be two or more people fighting – we hear “face-stealer” so we figure it’s our Stissa.

We quickly turn around and head towards the fight.