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Session 42
10/22/2011
Players
Jarri the Pale (Eric G.)
23 (Adrian)
Ookla the Mok (David)
Chrystos Salamander-Slayer (Chris)
E. N. Lightenment (Carl)
Azimuth (Javi)
Orb (Eric)
Adom First-Born (Scott)
Chuck (Karume)
NPCs of note
Zirol - 0-level Elven Fighter (who somehow managed to kick ass in spite of being 0-level)
Bjorn, Jarri’s Polar Bear (!)
Enemies Defeated
7 Dwarven "Bone" robots
7 wholly intact Dwarven Robots
6 "Dust Dwarves" were subdued and/or turned (I believe that 5 are still under the control of 23)
A green slime was captured in a "Pokemon ball" and later thrown at a battalion of Dwarven Robots as they subdued and pummeled the Killing Frost.
Treasure Liberated
400 gp of gold wire - had been wrapped around bones in preparation for dwarven skeleton robot integration
3,600 gp from a dwarven professor for the geode and other ore samples we pulled from the walls of the complex after the termites began to eat through the walls
1,700 gp from dwarves interested in ancient dwarven mechanical devices for what we were able to retain of the dwarven robots we "killed"
1,800 gp for 4 rusty/disfunctional dwarven rifles and two cannisters of ammo
1 dwarven rifle exploded in Jarri's hands, 1 was held for Lucky along with a cannister of ammo, and 1 is in someone else's possession (Chrystos)?
exp from combat ?
Each character gains 833 gp upon division of treasure
The Map
The Story
The party returned to the back room of the inn they’d been recruiting out of in Denethix and received two new-comers to the Grey Company, Adom First-Born, a sentient warrior-gorilla wielding an “intelligent” rifle and Chuck, a half-elf fighting man.
Shortly thereafter an older human woman arrived who claimed she was operating as the go-between for several able-bodied individuals interested in joining the party. Although she would not tell us directly, we soon learned by way of ESP that she represented as many as 300 goblins. We told her that we felt that this was not the right time but learned from her how we might contact her in the future.
We were then contacted by the Ninth Menegril who offered to sell us several items. Of them I believe that only Ookla struck a terrible deal, putting a down payment on a Ring of Telekinesis.
The choices before us were fairly plain, we could raid what we believed to be Ashur Ram’s tower or we could return to the dwarven “cylinder.” Having no magic users in the party at the time (Eric hadn’t shown up as yet so we didn’t know we’d have Orb with us) we thought it might be better not to try to enter the fortress of a powerful necromancer. So we opted for the cylinder.
We left at dawn, headed out of town in the wrong direction and doubled back through the swamps. We arrived without incident. Jarri, wearing a recently acquired pair of Gauntlets of Ogre Strength managed to turn the wheel on the top of the cylinder on his own and we began our descent. The “elevator” Ookla & Tobias had used to leave the cylinder had returned somehow to the bottom of the cylinder, even though there were no apparent tracks on or about the cylinder, or on the elevator platform itself. Jarri’s new companion, a polar bear, was unhappily lowered in a net as he was unable to use the ladders, but we all managed to get through the water at the base of the tower and eventually to the complex’s first entrance. (It seems that the ladder continues down the cylinder past the landing Tobias & Ookla had previously chosen to use as our entrance.)
We entered into the same octagonal room as Tobias & Ookla had done previously. There were new tracks of the same type we’d encountered previously, (dwarven robot patrols) but it was noted that any remaining nuts and bolts that might have littered the floor previously were now no longer in evidence. Something had been through to tidy up, even if they did leave footprints everywhere.
Having decided to begin by clearing out the Dwarven Skeletal Robots that Tobias & Ookla had evaded previously we proceeded through the door to the west, into a large chamber there and then Chrystos and Ookla scouted a room to the southwest. In there they found seven Dwarven Skeletal Robots lined up against the wall, seemingly inanimate. They crept back out of the room to inform the party, but apparently the closing of the door aroused the Dwarven Skeletal Robots because they came out to investigate. They were all swiftly dispatched without delay; only Ookla was slightly harmed.
Upon reentering the room the party found a pile of bones in one corner, apparently the remains of the elf and dwarf that had accompanied Ookla & Tobias on their previous visit. Some of the bones had been wrapped with 400gp of gold wire, seemingly in preparation for incorporation by the dwarves. Also in among the bones was an odd bulb with a lever-like attachment and a red and a blue wire sticking out of it. We gathered everything up, the gold, the bones for return to their heirs, and the wired bulb.
We went through the only other door in the room and this led us to a water closet with drains in the floor. Through one of the drains we espied green slime and began to retreat. Azimuth had other plans though, and captured some of the green slime in one of his Pokemon balls.
We proceeded to the room Ookla & Tobias encountered earlier with the secret door/unbreakable mirror with the loose wires sticking out of the wall next to it. 23 re-attached the wires to the bulb/lever and then, as we all took cover in the hallway, holding the door slightly ajar and peeking in from behind it, he flipped the switch. The mirror became effused with a purplish light and then disappeared, showing a corridor beyond it. We proceeded through the corridor, and into the several rooms beyond.
In the first there were foodstuffs covered with yellow mold. Since 23, not being able to breathe, was immune to their effects, he entered the room alone and searched the room. He found nothing.
In the second the party found seven rusty dwarven rifles and three containers of ammunition. Use of these was attempted twice later on. The first time the rifle didn’t fire and the second time it exploded in Jarri’s hands. Kids, stay in school.
As Chrystos and Ookla invisibly scouted the third room there arose from the floor six dwarven figures composed entirely of dust and attacked the party. One of them was dispatched and the five that remained were somehow turned by 23 and came under his influence. Before this transpired though, several of them managed to wound Chrystos significantly, enough that had he not been immediately tended to following the battle he would have passed into the world beyond. However, Tavis produced yet another arcane table which was used to determine that although Chrystos would live, hereafter he would experience a horribly painful burning sensation whenever he peed that would make him dance about, splattering his breeches in an unseemly fashion.
Sometime later 23 disappeared with his 5 dust-dwarves in a flourish, but until then we regularly quizzed the dust-dwarves about what was beyond various doors, etc.
An adjoining room contained the disconnected heads of many robot dwarves that had apparently revolted or disobeyed at some point or other. Their faces all contained scowls and grimaces.
Looking at the map at this point, Orb surmised that there might be a secret room on the far side of the wall since the shape of the space between the rooms seemed to mirror the shape and size of many of the rooms surrounding it. He sent a small phase spider he had with him through the wall to investigate. The spider didn’t find a room, but did report a small vertical shaft about a foot in diameter a couple of feet into the wall. It was empty and dry, but we were unable to ascertain its purpose.
The next room we investigated seems to have been the Emergency Core Generator, and the door let us out through the west wall of a round room about 40’ across. We were on a catwalk about 40’-60’ up (I could be wrong about this) and in the center of the room was a long glass tube running floor to ceiling containing some sort of green, viscous fluid (not green slime though). There were additional smaller tubes containing the liquid running floor-to-ceiling in the room and some were broken but seemed to be stoppered by some odd football-shaped things. There were ladders going down to the floor and other doors on the catwalk and down on the lower level, but we decided against further investigation.
Later, after a protracted battle with a good number of Robot Dwarves in which many of them were covered with/infected by the green slime from Azimuth’s Pokemon ball, these same Robot Dwarves rushed into this room and tried to clear off the green slime by pulling the stoppers out of the pipes and bathing in the green liquid as it gushed out of the pipe. It seems that the stoppers were in fact stirges who had so engorged themselves on the green liquid that they grew to stopping up the pipes they were feeding from. All of which invites some questions about the nature of this green liquid.
However, as I said, we didn’t investigate this room further, deciding instead to return later. We proceeded without incident into another octagonal chamber which connected via a small passageway to the octagonal room we’d entered initially. However, above one of the doors in the more recently discovered octagonal room was a sign bearing the words “Authorized Personnel Only.” The dust dwarves didn’t know what lay beyond this door because they hadn’t ever been authorized personnel. Opening the door revealed a lengthy corridor with another door at the far end. As a precaution earlier, 23 had begun running a program which optimized his powers of observation, highlighting any traps which might be otherwise concealed. Some 30’ down the hallway 23 could now see a trap which remained invisible to the rest of us. It was determined that this was likely a pit trap and the best way to proceed would be to just lay something across the 10’ or so the trap covered. So we ran back to the room with the detached robot dwarves’ heads, took down the shelving and returned with that. We lay that across the still-closed pit and crossed. After several members of the party had proceeded the pit opened up, but the shelf-bridge held. We all crossed over and began to investigate this door, but it was locked and the lock seemingly couldn’t be picked. There seemed to be something blocking the other side of the lock. Azimuth announced that one of the creatures in his Pokemon balls could teleport someone to the other side of the door. Ookla volunteered. Ookla was promptly teleported into solid stone.
Due to Ookla’s unresponsiveness (I suppose) the party determined that he was in some kind of trouble, and Orb sent his phase spider through the wall. The spider returned reporting that Ookla had been merged with solid stone, but that at the moment only the outer layers of his skin were affected, leaving the interior of flesh, organs and bones seemingly unaffected. [Tavis had pulled out the arcane table mentioned previously. Dice were rolled and the above was determined. As an unfortunate side-effect, Ookla was cured of the painful burning sensation that had previously occurred whenever he peed, ending his career as a pee-splattered-pants dancer.] The party began to hack at the door and wall, but Chrystos told them all to step aside and he threw a handful of the stone-eating termites he had been—naturally—carrying. The termites ate through the stone and when Ookla fell from the wall Jarri poured a Potion of Healing between Ookla’s lips raw, bare teeth, reviving him.
At that moment, the door at the other end of the hallway burst open again (did I forget to mention that the door at the end of the hallway had burst open once before with several Robot Dwarves who seemed to be hauling the remains of several of their fallen “comrades” in the direction of the pit? Oh right, and when the pit opened up we looked down and there was a cage and a hanging at the bottom of the pit and well below the cage on the floor the parts of many broken-up robot dwarves.) and now there were a number of robot dwarves waiting to get through.
I feel like I’m not remembering this part right. E. N. Lightenment summoned the Killing Frost to go after the Robot Dwarves, but they somehow managed to subdue him. The battle was all taking place in the octagonal room adjoining the long hallway we were in. At the same time two of Azimuth’s Pokemon balls were loosed amid the battle, the first containing the green slime, and the second containing a creature that moved in circles around the room at “lightning speed” creating a whirlwind of green slime and snow. Eventually the dwarves left the room, racing for the Emergency Generator Room to try to wash off the green slime as described above. I’m not sure how we saw all of that, but it sounds like a truly horrific vision: mechanical dwarves beeping and whirring in agony as they try to wash off the slime that is slowly corroding them, wallowing in a frothing pool of viscous generator fluid while several bloated stirges thrash about in the pool, trying to fly but too heavy and wings too covered with goo to get to safety, almost certain to drown in a deep puddle of what otherwise would have been their dinner.
But anywho, once the dwarves had rushed off, we noticed that the termites had chewed through a significant chuck of the wall, revealing several more of vertical shafts like the one encountered by Orb’s phase spider. A couple were filled with valuable geodes and other crystals which we collected. Ookla, sitting on the floor and propped up against a wall managed to croak out that he thought these might be remnants of the solidified veins of the colossus as we were so near where his body might be. We then hurried out of the hallway and gathered up whatever parts we could of the various dwarven robots we’d defeated, hurried back up through the cylinder and returned to town.
We returned the bones of the dwarven and elven NPCs who’d fallen in the first go-round to their families and sold off whatever else we’d managed to take from the complex.
