SESSION 17A: SHILUKAR’S LAIR

March 9th, 2008
The 7th Day of Kadal in the 790th Year of the Seyrunian Dynasty

The clattering commotion of the dislodged debris echoed down the vertical tunnel. The six of them looked at each other.

“We should go quickly,” Elestra said. “Before whatever’s down there to hear the noise can respond.”

“Right,” Tee said, and swung herself over the edge and onto the wooden ladder.

Agnarr followed her, cracking a sunrod and sticking it into his backpack.

At the bottom of the stairwell, Tee found herself in a plain room of worn, dull gray stone. A solid door of iron was set in the far wall.

As the others descended, Tee approached the door and inspected it. It was quite sturdy, but she was able to make short work of the high quality lock. Easing back she let Agnarr step up to the door and open it.

Beyond the door the next room widened considerably. The sole exit from this room was a set of two iron doors marked with a bas relief of a large claw. Standing directly before these doors, however, were four emaciated figures. They stood with perfect stillness, their features obscured by charcoal-colored cloaks and hoods.

After a long, silent moment in which neither the strangely disturbing figures nor the wanderers moved, Tee drew her dragon pistol and fired a shot.

The blast of energy neatly clipped one of the figures, catching it in the shoulder. The reaction was immediate: All four of the figures threw back their heads with an eery, wailing ululation and darted forward, their hands lashing forwards with fingers ending in long, tapered claws.

The features revealed as their hoods fell back were those of goblins – but goblins possessed of sickly gray skin. More disturbingly, the eyes and mouths of each goblin had been sewn shut with thick, black string. Despite this, all of them moved with sure, fluid motions.

Tee fired again and then these strange, gray goblins were upon them. (more…)

SESSION 16D: ZAVERE’S NEED

January 19th, 2008
The 6th Day of Kadal in the 790th Year of the Seyrunian Dynasty

RIDDLES AND REST

Another day of delving had left them exhausted, bloody, and battered. But, thanks to Dominic’s faith and the power of the gods, not dead.

They were, however, in desperate need of rest. So they headed back to the surface, looking forward eagerly to the clean sheets and warm beds of the Ghostly Minstrel.

When they arrived, most of them staggered straight up to bed. But Tellith called Tee over to the front desk – she had received a letter. Cracking open the seal of purple wax, Tee saw that it came from Lord Zavere: He had heard from Mand Scheben and was concerned. He would like to meet with all of them in the morning, if it would be possible.

As she finished reading, Tee looked up into the common room and spotted Iltumar Shon nursing a drink. She was clearly the worse for wear, but she had been hoping to run into the young blacksmith’s apprentice for a couple of days now.

With a smile she came up behind him: “It’s an anchor.”

Iltumar jumped in his seat and twisted around to look at her. “Mistress Tee?! Wha–?”

“The answer to your riddle. It’s an anchor.” Tee caught Zade’s eye from across the room and signaled for a drink. Then she pulled out a chair and sat down.

Iltumar’s face split into a wide grin. “It is an anchor!”

“Now I’ve got one for you:

Of all my siblings, which I have many,
I am the number, wise old twenty,
I always wear my long thin hat,
And stand on one leg; I’ve never sat.
I’m last of the last, and last of the first,
I’m last of the best, and last of the worst.
Who am I?

(more…)

SESSION 16C: THE BLACK CENTURIONS

January 19th, 2008
The 6th Day of Kadal in the 790th Year of the Seyrunian Dynasty

Congratulations rained down on Dominic. Agnarr pounded him on the back with his blood-slicked hand. (Prompting Dominic to give him something of an uncertain look.)

With jubilance still in the air, Tee went back to work on the door. She quickly had it unlocked and Agnarr stepped forward to swing it open.

Beyond the door there was, as they had suspected, a short hallway that emptied out into the room with the pool. (The glowgems from that large chamber were casting their eery silvery light down the length of the hall.) But there were also four other hallways heading off in perpendicular directions.

They proceeded cautiously: Heading to the first intersection, Tee looked both left and right. She discovered two antechambers similar to those in which they had found the black cords and broken machinery… only these were occupied.

In each of the small rooms, a humanoid construct of pitch black metal was suspended from an elaborate half-cocoon of complicated machinery that hung from the wall. Each construct was utterly featureless – their faces flat black planes. And, Tee realized, the constructs were actually hovering inside their cocoons – the only connection a slack black cord that plugged into the back of their necks.

Ranthir had never seen anything like them. In fact, even the metal from which they were crafted defied his ken. He moved into the room on the left to take a closer look. Tee and Agnarr positioned themselves in the room across the hall, keeping a nervous eye on the construct there. Elestra and Tor stayed back in the torture chamber, but Dominic came down and stood in the hall between the two rooms – looking towards each in turn.

Unfortunately, no one went to check on the next set of hallways. There had been a cursory discussion, but the decision was made that they should make sure that these first two chambers were secure before attempting to advance. But the next hallway was only ten feet away, and so there was little or no warning when one of the black centurions suddenly raced around the corner with seemingly preternatural and silent speed.

Dominic caught the flash of movement from the corner of his eye and whirled in time to see the centurion’s arm transforming – literally melding itself into a long, pointed spear. He stumbled back and opened his mouth to cry out, but then the creature was upon him. The spear flashed out towards his abdomen, and Dominic only barely managed to turn aside so that the blow ripped into his flesh instead of disemboweling him completely.

Dominic retreated. The centurion pursued, its arm transforming again – this time into a sword that hacked down mercilessly towards Dominic’s head. Dominic cringed before the blow— (more…)

IN THE SHADOW OF THE SPIRE

SESSION 16B: THE SANGUINEOUS DRINKER

January 19th, 2008
The 6th Day of Kadal in the 790th Year of the Seyrunian Dynasty

PRISON CELLS AND TORTURE CHAMBERS

Eventually Tee concluded that there was no way for her to get the door open: There was no mechanism for her to manipulate and she couldn’t figure out any way to fool what identification magic was being used by the palm reader.

They headed back to the hallway crossroads and went in the opposite direction. This took them into a small area with four chambers similar to the antechambers in which they had found the black cords upstairs. In each of the chambers, they could see the smashed remnants of complex machinery.

“What are these things?” Elestra openly wondered.

Nobody knew. But Ranthir, poking around through the wreckage, found more of the black cords leading from walls and attached to what was left of the machinery (suggesting that machinery like this might once have been found in the chambers upstairs, as well).

A doorway on the far end of this area led back out into the pool room. They turned around and went back to the crossroads, continuing on their way.

A set of double doors led them into another hallway, this one ending in another bluesteel door. This bluesteel door, however, had been heavily battered from the outside, bending it hideously inward. Despite its warped condition, however, its tremendous strength did not seem noticeably lessened. They had no luck trying to get past it.

So, instead, they took a side passage that led them into a narrow hall flanked by four prison cells. Each of the cells had a lever on the wall directly opposite it, and some quick experimentation by Agnarr revealed that these levers opened the bars on the cells (retracting them into the floor).

Two of the cells were occupied by skeletons. Tee shot a couple of arrows at them, just to be one the safe side, but they didn’t appear to be undead… just dead.

One of the cells, however, didn’t need to be opened: The bars had been broken and bent outward. (Clearly whatever had been locked in there hadn’t wanted to stay put.)

Agnarr was pondering the cells with a thoughtful look on his face. This made Tee nervous. “What is it, Agnarr?”

Agnarr turned to Dominic. “Is one of these bodies an orc?”

Dominic did a quick examination of the bones and identified that, in fact, one of the bodies had belonged to an orc.

Agnarr grinned, grabbed the hand from the orc skeleton, and ran back to the room with the rods and iron door. He stuck the bony hand into the palm reader…

(more…)

IN THE SHADOW OF THE SPIRE

SESSION 16A: TO LABYRINTH’S END

January 19th, 2008
The 6th Day of Kadal in the 790th Year of the Seyrunian Dynasty

They left the Temple of Asche. Tee headed down towards South Market to meet with Edarth and collect their payment for the consignment of gems. The rest of the group split up: Ranthir and Elestra headed back to the Delver’s Guild Library to continue Ranthir’s research. The others headed towards the Undermarket and began asking questions about the taint and showing around the tainted objects they had recovered.

Their goal was to find out more about the taint or the objects or both. Maybe there was some other way that they could dispose of the objects or cleanse themselves of the taint.

Unfortunately, their inquiries were unsuccessful. Those who had any familiarity with the taint could only give them one piece of advice: Stay away from it.

Sheva Callister told them the same thing when they asked her about it: “There are dark things beneath the city. Some look for the power to withstand them, but in my experience its better to learn how to avoid them.”

RETURN TO THE LOWER LEVEL

By noon they had all returned to the Ghostly Minstrel. They had learned nothing of value, but at least they had the money they would need to pay the Temple for their cleansing rites the next day.

Despite the fact that neither Tee nor Ranthir were feeling entirely well, the decision was made to return to Ghul’s Labyrinth. “I’d rather not just sit around and wait,” Tee said. “Besides, I may feel a little under the weather, but it’s not that bad.”

They first thing they did was open the doors to the temple of ebony, throw every item they had identified as tainted into the room, and then slam the door shut again. Then they headed straight back to the area they had been exploring before being driven out of the complex by their wounds. The strewn wreckage of the constructs was undisturbed, and they took this as a sign that there were no more immediate threats in the area.

On the far side of the chamber of the jewel scarabs they found a series of workshops that had apparently been dedicated to the creation of various constructs.

In the first of these chambers there was a large forge built into the corner. Strange metal frames were built up here and there and the middle of the room was dominated by a large stone worktable. The materials in this room had been badly damaged, but Ranthir estimated that it could still be quite valuable (worth 2,000 gold pieces or more). However, the total weight of it all – more than five thousand pounds – quickly dissuaded them from any thoughts of looting the place.

The new chamber appeared to be a parts storage of some kind. The walls of the room had been carved out with numerous cubbyholes, cabinets, shelves, and the like. Ranthir identified these golem construction parts as being more valuable – worth 5,000 gold pieces — and lighter weight (only a thousand pounds or so). But it was still more than they could hope to carry out of here. (“We’ll need to come back with hirelings,” Agnarr said, gazing appreciatively around the room.)

In the next chamber there were several rack-like structures running down the length of either wall. Most of these racks were empty, but two of them still contained mechanical constructs.

Various sections of these constructs, however, were open. They had either been disassembled or were never complete to begin with. Ranthir was intrigued at the thought of completing them, but this was a project that would undoubtedly require a great deal of study and even more time.

For now they moved on, taking a hall that led east out of this final chamber. This took them into another workroom in which a large drill – literally ten feet long and half as thick – was suspended from scaffolding. The drill was flanked by two workbenches and was clearly unfinished. However, Ranthir was able to ordain enough of its mechanisms to recognize that, intact, it would have been self-propelling. The drill’s cutting surfaces were edged with at least 9,000 gold pieces worth of adamantine.

While Ranthir had been examining the drill’s mechanisms, Tee had been poking through the workbenches. In one of the many drawers, she found a cedar box inlaid with Ghul’s skull sigil in blackoak on the lid.

(more…)