Session Sixty (Graveyard of Empires Summary)
Session 60 – The Better Late Than Never Edition
We took some downtime, cramped as the octagonal portal room was, and during this Belroar was able to finish several of his animal-body-part-recycling projects. Finklemur and Fitz also spent some time poring over their respective spellbooks, giving the both wizards chance to expand their repertoires.
(Sometime during our rest, Thorfus dreams about talking to his deceased uncle and Xen’Tellar, who warns him of danger in current task of locating the sphere, and offers him some guidance in how to proceed. Of course, none of the others know about this, except perhaps Araquiel.)
Chuq suggests a plan to get rid of the still-noisy zombies, utilising webs and the bottleneck the door provides. Thorfus also posits that we can use the airlock’s odd defence mechanism to simply fry them. The difficult part would be opening the far door and not getting captured by the undead or trapped in the airlock itself, which could be solved by Chuq’s shadow-stepping ability.
Eventually after a bit of thought and testing, we realise that we cannot really open the doors safely at all, and decide to leave the zombies to their own devices for now.
Finklemur shrinks Chuq down to just over a foot tall, and accompanied by Socrates, he starts scouting out the other side of the arrow slits, starting with the north-eastern one. The room beyond is a trapezoidal shape and doorless, with the only entrance being an elevator in the floor. The far wall is taken up by four metal lockers.
He tests the elevator works first, using a panel beside it, which unfortunately makes an incredible racket. Luckily, nothing seems to react from below. Socrates is sent to explore the lower level, as the owl is still invisible, and notices that the tunnels connect all the elevators, as well as an additional one to the west. Several skeletal dwarves inhabit the tunnels as well, armed and armoured. There seems to be some valuables down there, and Finklemur gets Socrates to grab a scroll case and bring it back up to him. One of the dwarves also has a wand tucked into it’s belt, but he figures it would be too risky.
Belroar takes the time to inspect the dropping amongst the rubble, which he says comes from a lizard of some kind, which is definitely bigger than the dogs, and some sort of carnivore. Chuq takes the time to get the opinions of the three dogs on the matter, during which I’m pretty sure they discussed eating the droppings.
I worry for this party sometimes…
Chuq in the meantime is trying to open the lockers, but due to his current stature, it requires us to thread a rope through the handles and have the party in the other room pull it open for him. We get them all open in this fashion, and gather a collection of dwarven weapons and armour, some of it magical. Most notably are several multi-tools, part handaxe, part pick. There are also a few pieces of jewellery.
It takes some work to get the items through the slit, and some are simply to big or too high on the shelves for Chuq to reach. Socrates is available to grab several of the smaller items also, mostly jewellery from the top shelves. Eventually, Chuq has to retreat as the spell wears off, and Finklemur goes off to rest and recover his spells. He does first open the scroll case, revealing a magical scroll that turns out to be ‘Protection from Elementals’.
Chuq questions the odd of the complex. Four rooms, which appear to be armouries, accessible only from below and a distant lift. Each is capable of covering the central room through the arrow slits, and any intruder will have to fight through both crossbow bolts from all sides, then get through password-protected airlocks that fry weapons and armour. It was obviously intended to be a gatehouse, easily defendable. It had fallen however, though perhaps from inside forces or a plague of undead.
After this, we decide to take the time to have Socrates carry rope and hook the lockers in the remaining rooms so we can get at all the gear within, and also have our wizards scan the items for magic. The only issue will be the north-western room, which has a cover of it’s arrow slit.
One of the rooms contains a rune-carved set of platemail, which lights up Thorfus’ eyes certainly, alongside more of the same axes, crossbows and bolts, but also a carved chest. Chuq uses his shadow-stepping to get through into south-east room, and grabs the runic armour, a regular set and the chest. He takes a second step into the north-east room, and passes the magical items from there back through the arrow slot, before stepping back into the central room.
Thorfus of course dons the runic armour, feeling rather more secure in it.
(Riese, if you’re reading this, I heard you say I suck after I went to bed. Boo, unfair!)
The party finishes resting, giving time for Brice to heal everyone back to health, and Belroar time to flirt with Xelina. Once done, we gather everything up and decide to leave the chamber and head back up to the surface. Thorfus takes the time to lay out his uncle respectfully atop the wagon.
On the way out, we spot a single monkey automaton cross their path, heading south, prompting them to be on guard. We ignore it for now except for Socrates briefly following it to get a rough idea where it was going, which appears to be the workshops.
Next, we happen across a group of ten dwarves waiting at the bottom of the spiral tunnel. They seem nervous, and are identifiable as Xenilum’Khel Militia thanks to their uniform cloaks. Wary for ambush, we continue to approach them. They seem to be complaining about having to wait for a group down here, as most have already left and the Naga is still running around.
They hear us approach and recognise us, specifically Thorfus as being Dolmon’s nephew. They’d apparently broken through the rubble earlier that day, and they’re quite insistent to get moving and leave, so we let them escort us out. Finklemur disappears at some point, and I realise he must of cast his favourite spell.
At the top, a small opening as been cleared, and we exit into the sun. Another team of twenty dwarves guard the entrance, led by an older dwarf, who identifies himself as Haakun Colm, an ambassador from Xurnost’Khel. Several Brothers of the Worldforge are summoned to take care of Dolmon, and they reverently carry him away.
We talk a little about the intentions of the Naga whilst the dwarves block up the entrance again, to be on the safe side should the Naga come looking for revenge. We then head off into the city, which seems to be quite deserted. We’re led out of the dwarven quarter, and told we have leave to return the day after. The lower levels are a bit of a contrast to our previous experience, and instead of being mobbed, we’re now being avoided. We head over to Desric’s cousin’s home before going to the Sleeping Collossus.
We fill Ghermin in on our side of the story, explaining on how Carrow’s group got a hold of the phoenix egg in the first place. He notes our successes though, particularly obvious due to Thorfus’ armour, so we offer him a pick of our spoils. He takes all the gems, jewellery and robes, as well as most of the multi-tools and hand-crossbows. Finklemur also offers up the scroll, but Ghermin says he’d need a trusted opinion of another wizard.
The trip all in all leaves us a hell of a lot richer.
(The recording cuts out here, but I don’t believe I missed anything)