Dalnor/Campaign1/session-21
Spin the Bottle
Session Date: September 26, 2009
He who pours water hastily into a bottle spills more than goes in - Spanish Proverb
Dalin 14, 53
After the fight, the party catches their breath in the forge room. They recollect themselves and take stock of what is in the room: The dead men from Arn and the central forge. Upon examination, it appears that the central forge had had a firestone. The firestone had been forcibly removed from the central forge.
After catching their breath the party decides to track down the fleeing goblin. There is a brief discussion as to how much light the party should be emitting: To dark and they all stumble around waiting to be eaten. To bright and it will be like ringing a dinner bell for all of the hungry critters in the tunnels. The decide that a dim light would be acceptable to all.
The party tracks the goblin through several intersections. To the party's perception the goblin is slowing down and starting to bleed out. The party also see several scavenger beasts in the side tunnels that keep well away from the party's light. After traveling through several intersections the party hears a gargled scream which is quickly cut off.
The party follows the trail to a room and see the goblin's corpse in the center of the room. Beyond the goblin is a cloud of dark smoke that is clings to the far wall. Taking a look around the party sees that the room was previously used as a pub or meeting hall. There is the remains of an old bar in one corner and some broken up furniture scattered throughout the room.
The party cautiously creep up to the goblin so they can take a look at it. The goblin had been killed by something that had large fangs that bit the goblin on the back of its legs.
The party decides that the thick smoke cloud in the far side of the room warrants an investigation. They are understandably leery of what ever killed the goblin. In order to get any idea as to what is in the smoke, Al suggests throwing his lit Sunblade into the smoke. The party sees no problem with this and Al has at it. As the knife flies through the smoke, the smoke seems to retract from the light emitted by the knife. Due to the smoke clearing slightly and the light of the knife, the party briefly sees a trio of figures in the smoke (one humanoid and two that are bipedal but otherwise obscured) and some equipment in the smoke against the far wall.
Seeing the unmoving figures in the smoke the party takes a much more careful examination of the room. After a minute the party sees several small humanoids with wings clinging to the upper walls and ceiling of the room. Not knowing if the smoke they see in the room is the smoke they are looking for and not knowing exactly what they would be facing, the party decides to back out of the room and reconsider their options.
As the party starts to pull out of the room. Al stops and throws his sunblade back into the smoke, aiming where he had seen one of the figures. Immediately after this, the figures that had been previously immobile spring to action, the figures on the walls spring to life and drop off of their perches. Also an iron cobra drops down out of the ceiling of the hallway into the midst of the party. There is a chaotic fight in the hall and room as the party attempts to withdraw in an orderly fashion while the enemy figures emerge from the smoke. The figures emerging from the smoke turn out to be a pair of mechanical bipedal crossbows and a metal man that resembles Crash but appears to have none of the upper reasoning functions that Crash has. The clay scouts that drop off the ceiling cause havoc with the party when they hit. The party manages to destroy all of the guardians but not without Rhogar and Varien both being knocked unconcious during the fight and having to be revived.
Safiria moves up to the edge of the smoke cloud in order to ascertain how dangerous it is. The party sees her cock her head with the same listening posture that she had in the old dwarf out post where the party found Crash. After waiting a short amount of time, Al impatiently barges past Safiria and charges headlong into the smoke. The party is a concerned and upset at his actions. Safiria probes the smoke with her hands and sees that it has no immediate affect on her. The party then hears Al bumping around in the smoke cloud.
Having seen that Al's knife could drive back the smoke, Winyar Megil tries using his power to Repel the Undead on the smoke. While not "turning" the smoke per se, a lot of the smoke is burned away by Winyar's power. The smoke clears sufficiently for the party to see Alex fumbling with a tar coated bag while at the same time trying to operate the equipment they had briefly glimpsed before.
Al doesn't even get a chance to explain himself before Varien starts chewing Al up and down and around the flagpole. After the screaming dies down a little bit Varien gets to the point: No one minds that Alex wants to make a buck on the side, they do mind that he was doing it at the party's expense and that Al was withholding information that could have helped the party. Varien is particularly incensed since he was one of the people that was knocked unconcious in the fight that Alex provoked. Al is unapologetic for his actions.
The apparatus in the room looks like a stand pipe that had been driven down through the floor the party was on into the lower levels.The apparatus has some valves and equipment that allows a user to fill a vessel with the smoke. The equipment is also leaking a bit which is what formed the smoke cloud surrounding the equipment. No one is particularly comfortable with it, but Alex's bag and the klein bottle are filled by the apparatus in the room. The material is a black sludge that wisps of smoke peel off.
Crash pulls parts off of the destroyed guardians so he can take them with him.
Winyar wants to continue into the dungeon to find the firestone but the rest of the party says that they have had enough of the fortress for one day.
Dalin 15, 53
The trip back is particularly tense with the party muttering to each other in small groups and quiet tones.
Party arrives in shanty town.
Dalin 17, 53
Party arrives in Mormoon.
Once the party arrives in town, they scatter in several different directions as fast as they can:
Winyar sees his head priest, has a meeting with him and then heads to the dwarves to meat up with Crash and Rhogar.
Crash and Rhogar to the dwarves. Crash give a report on the condition of the fortress and the smoke. The dwarves are very concerned with the smoke. The dwarves want to know who has been harvesting smoke. The dwarves comment that the missing firestone could be used as a ward against the smoke in some cases. Winyar wants to know how to make a firestone, the dwarf elder give Winyar an odd look and says he will send along the instructions.
Lucius, Varien and Safiria to the Raven and the Crown. The three of them are ushered into a lab room. Against one wall is an apparatus that resembles the equipment that the necromancer had assembled in the basement of the town when the party killed him. Only this equipment is composed entirely out of glass. The centerpiece of the equipment is a large multi-level, multi-segment glass distillery. It is jokingly referred to as "the cappuccino machine of evil". When the guild member unlocks the klein bottle the smoke is siphoned into a holding tank and then fed into the distillery where the smoke is broken down into different grades, thicknesses and weights. As this is happening, the guild memeber explains that the smoke is actually "necrotic seepage" that is bleeding through a rift from the Shadowfell. The rift itself was probably opened back when the fortress was destroyed and it never reclosed. Since then it has just been seeping from that world into this one.
To demonstrate the issues with the smoke, the guild members usher in a rat in a glass case and position it below a large anvil that is hung from the ceiling. The guild members then hook up some piping from the smoke distillery and attach it to the glass case the rat is in. The glass case is then pumped full of the smoke. The transformation of the rat is almost instantaneous as it gets larger, more feral, starts developing all sorts of unsavory characteristics, and is no longer the sweet peaceful creature that it had been several seconds before. Before the smoke-enhanced-rat can break out of its glass prison the anvil is dropped on it, crushing it. the guild member explains that the rat was transformed under pretty harsh circumstances. The creatures living in the fortress have more time to adapt to the living conditions and their descendants may even thrive, albeit with strange mutations and alterations to their appearance, abilities and livelihood. When asked why people would want to have such material around, the observation made was that you could convert average people off the street into slavering beasts quickly and make an instant army; With the understanding that the army would be a bit wild, unstable and their long term life expectancy would be in doubt.
Al heads off the bar and is not seen for the rest of the evening.
Previously: Truth or Date
Continued in: Kill the Carrier
Campaign 1 Index
