Session One Hundred and Fifty-Nine Summary (Graveyard of Empires: After the Fall)

Session 159, November 8 2023

Introduction

We continue at 1:40AM on the 16th of Anurilden (00.000.08.14 on the Apocalypse Clock) with the party catching their breath after escaping the froghemoth lurking in the waters flowing through Gharaz'Khel. Unfortunately, the encounter with that creature led to the destruction of the group's animated undead servants and boat. Now, in addition to searching for something useful in the ruined fortress for their eventual trip to Feldmark, the party must look for an alternate exit or new vessel. Can they do all that in time to meet-up with the Bronze Wizard at the mouth of the Khelrun on the 20th of Anurilden? What other dangers are waiting for them deeper into the halls of Gharaz'Khel? Find out next time; or not.

Inside Gharaz'Khel

We find ourselves in a 20 x 20 room with sealed door behind us.

There are four grey lockers that take up all of the East and West walls and double doors to the North that are closed. The lock panel is red. There is an animated sign above the animated door in ancient dwarven : "Containment compromised. Please don safety gear and shelter in place or evacuate as per your department's safety protocols."

There are 4 very non-protective, fabricy suits of armor with a silver sheen with helmets and tanks on the floor with breathing apparatus to connect to helmet and some sort of projectile weapons. On back of locker is an idiographic safety poster showing how to put on the safety suit with a danger picture of one without a suit dissolved into a pile of goo. Four suits in each locker for a total of 16 suits. There are two guns in each locker for a total of 8. It is nothing like any of us have ever seen before. There is a flatish box over the handle. Others are more like a tube with a handle. No hole for projectiles to exit.

Glompus goes to fire one of the guns and Thorfus stops him warning that we are in a dangerous place and the dangerous creature is a foretaste of the dangers ahead.

Glompus notices the arm of one of the suits behind Thorfus reaches out for him.

Glompus tries to grab the weapon and grab the suit. There is a deet deet sound and a green light glows and nothing else happens and then the suit.

The suit bops Thorfus in the arm and the facemask of the suit has hundreds or thousands of eyeballs with roiling, fluctuating flesh. We notice that 6 of the other suits are starting to move. Another in the locker near Thorfus, two near Druul, one near Velkin, and two near Thorfus.

Kauri sees transpatial energy all around in the heat of the moment.

We close the doors while Glompus keeps pressing the trigger on the device.

Lambertus yells at Felix to brace against a locker. Peronelle helps Druul brace a locker, and Renthark helps Velkin brace against a locker. Thorfus braces against the locker, watching the ventilation openings, and scans for automata.

There is a bit of thudding on the other side of the lockers. It feels weird, but not a lot of force.

Peronelle braces a spear against the locker in front of she and Velkin.

Druul tries to jam a dagger into the hinge side of the door.

Glompus releases the trigger and Prixithalma is standing in the middle of the room.

Velkin says in ancient dwarven to the beast on the other side of the door, "What are you?"

Glompus helps Lambertus brace a locker door.

Druul jams a dagger into another locker and Peronelle does the same on the one Thorfus is holding. This leaves the one held by Lambertus, Felix, and Glompus.

Druul seems somethings pour out of the vent on the locker. They are fleshy lumps with many eyes and bony legs like weird spiders. They slip out of vents and fall to the floor.

Peronelle sees the same on her locker.

Thorfus kicks away the ones coming out of the locker trying to climb on him.

Peronelle is swarmed and they climb and bite her. She resists their poison, yelling in pain and starts brushing them off.

Druul & Velkin resist as does Renthark and they follow Thorfus.

Thorfus Pulls out his platinum lenticular device and runs to the locked door. Yelling "follow me!"

Velkin smashes a vial of oil on the floor.

The door cycles open and there is a blast of noise from a Klaxon with a woman's voice saying in ancient dwarven, "Containment breach, unsafe levels of TSE." (Trans Spatial Energy)

There is an odd shaped 30x30 room. two long hallways to North and East. North is 20 feet to East and multiple other doors. Double door in Western wall. Single doors E & W and door beside door to N. All the doors except the double doors to the West are Open.

There is a ten foot central pillar of clear glass with lumpy flesh with vestigial limbs that look more dwarven if not human and pieces of eyes and noses and covers what is in the central pillar. The vestigial hands flap.

Sign above Northern hallway, Central Core. To East Access to reservoir and lower level.

West Cooling reservoir catwalk.

Velkin breaks his vial of oil on the floor. Kauri touches the oil with his ever burning candle. There is a bit of wailing from the creatures. Thorfus shuts and locks the door behind us to stop the creatures from following.

Velkin plugs his ears with wax, and we all follow.

Panel next to double doors to West are red. All open doors have green lights.

First door to left/West are a bunch of workstations or panels along wall with blinking lights and above is a tinted window the entire length of wall. To the right/East is open space to the North is a bunch of white cabinets with the same weird look of the device Glompus is carrying. To S is a table and door to other room.

Thorfus goes to investigate the workstations and panels to the left/West, Kauri joins him.

Glompus goes to investigate to the right/East.

Velkin stays put examining room.

Renthark and Peronelle stand and keep an eye on the rooms where Thorfus, Kauri and Glompus are.

Prix looks around and does a perimeter walk around checking all the open doors.

Thorfus and Kauri are in a 30x40 room with a central bank of workstations. Tinted windows to West and South with levers, dials, blinking lights, not much in the way of interfaces. No indication that any station is more important than the others.

Each workstation dials with water pressure and levers have numbered sluices and channels, open and closed positions. About all the levers are turned to open position for all sluices and channels.

The only thing that catches out eyes, all lights are near labels have to do with open and closed drains and anything to do with drains have red lights.

Glompus is relying on infravision and there is something weird about the temperature there. One cabinet is sort of a blank space in infravision. Glompus reaches out to touch it and it has a slick feel to it. Glompus finds the latch and opens it and there is heat inside, there are ratlike shapes with tiny legs and big buck teeth and a hole dug into the walls writhing around like babies, except for one that is full size and rears up hissing. Glompus says, "We're not going to hurt you, we're here for the jubilee." The babies start to fall out onto the floor as the mother tries to slap them into going into the hole in the wall.

Prix gives running commentary. Closed to West, office, North hallway continues past the door, dormitory, maybe office down long hallway to East.

Glompus reaches down to pick up the baby intending to put is back in the cabinet.

The adult rat lunges. Glompus puts the baby down in front of her and backs up with his hands up.

Glompus backs up. "I will close the door after you get all the babies inside."

Glompus hears hissing behind him and there are a mass of rats. "Hello, everyone we're here for the jubilee."

"Did he hurt anyone?" "No, but keep an eye on him."

"You're here for the jubilee?" "Maybe he's a spy?" "A spy from whom?" "The enemy."

Glompus has a moment of light headedness as he calls out for fingers.

We all hear the call for fingers from Glompus.

Drains are open and have red lights and channels and sluices tend to have green lights.

Kauri sees transpatial blue energy everywhere since this place is powered. The room Glompus is in has a glow and not sure what it is since there are no apparent devices in it.

We go to see what is up with Glompus.

Ted goes into room with fingers and sees a bunch of the rat creatures like the ones from the barn. Velkin slips the fingers into Glompus' hands.

Glompus says, here' we brought food for the feast/jubilee as he tosses fingers to the rat creatures and they devour them. The spokesrat says leave the young ones along, but you may go to the jubilee, it is below in the heart where the master waits.

Glompus asks, The master of revels? You've met him? He spins forever, in a wild dervish of joy. And is below. Is he big like my friends? He is all. We go now back into the walls, we watch you, behave.

Velkin whispers to Glompus, who is the enemy, the holder of the key that no longer works. They dare not come here, they are not invited to the jubilee.

The rats disappear into the walls, and the nurse has herded all the rats into the hole in the back of the cabinet.

Looking around there are cabinets, one door is open with a cold box. Thorfus closes it. To the South is another window and along the South wall is a table with chairs knocked over. No labels on cabinets. Kauri sees the transpatial glow all around, almost like we are swimming in it.

There is a glow from other room to the South from two cabinets with screens. Velkin goes to check it out. They are 6 feet tall with screens and glow is because they have moving pictures. They have lines that are moving, the lines represent the topography of the ground in a moment of vertigo and perspective of screen reacts to swaying. Velkin moves hand and is in control of perspective. Other shapes in the distance come towards him and sounds like something is hitting and ancient dwarven writing says "Direct Hit, take evasive action." "Jab to return fire."

Thorfus says, "Quit playing with that thing. We need to find the main control panel."

Kauri goes to check with the others. Glompus also goes to check the North hallway to the core.

Prix is standing next to the office. Thorfus goes to check the office.

Druul goes to check out the barracks and grabs Renthark to keep an eye behind him. Druul pokes his head in then closes each door, working his way down the hallway. Each of 5 rooms has a bed and footlockers. The room at the end of the hall is tiled. Druul peeks in and looks to left and right (N & S). To the South here are three narrow cubbies with a nozzle about 7 feet up the walls with drains in the floor. To the North are three privies.

Druul gets a feeling that things are above him so he pulls back.

Druul goes to close the door and something green falls from ceiling just as it falls.

Thorfus and Kauri go up to Prix and look in the door of the office. It is about 40 x 30. There is a large desk situated in the middle. There is a pedestal with a cube and a blue hologram in the alcove, and cubbies full of cubes. Prix, shouting says, "It looks like someone important was here."

Thorfus goes in and Velkin follows invisibly.

The desk has a transparent surface with a glow. The cube with a hologram has ancient dwarven with shut down protocols.

Thorfus looks to the desk and sees what it ways. Kauri checks out the pedestal with a cube. Velkin goes to check out the cubbies with cubes. They are 6 inch cubes with a label on each cubby with an alphanumeric code.

Thorfus sees that the interface on screen is open to ancient dwarven. There is a keyboard to interface with it. It looks like in the midst of a program. The last little bit says, "Can anyone tell me what to expect in the core area?"

Kauri sees "Shutdown protocols for core generator." It is talking about putting all levers into position and what button to push. Last bit has using the two overseer keys simultaneously to initiate shutdown.

Glompus goes down hallway to North and beyond the double doors, it just goes. About 20 feet down is an open door. He thinks he can see another open door. Along the floor are little lights. Maybe 100 to 120 feet is another open door and hallway may occur past that point. Glompus goes down to the door. Beyond is another door that is closed with a red panel. Glompus taps it and the door doesn't open. Glompus goes back towards us.

Druul comes back to Renthark, who asks if all is OK. Druul looks down the hallway to the East. 30 feet to a door, then 40 feet with lighting along floor and opens to maybe a desk.

Druul asks Renthark to stay at the door as Druul goes down hallway. It is a desk with a gray locker in a 30 x 30 room. Passage to South that slopes down. The desk is just a desk, no screen.

Kauri at the cube makes not of what the lever settings should be. The diagrams look much more complicated than the levers and dials Thorfus and Kauri investigated. This is a whole wall of levers and dials. Kauri book marks this point and looks up how to silence the klaxon. This is an emergency maintenance guide for the substation core. Info about what the core is, etc.

Thorfus goes back to the menu from the messaging system.

Menu: - Emergency Options - Emergency Broadcast options to initiate, turn off, etc. - Currently everything is falling apart broadcast is turned on. - Thorfus turns it off and everything goes silent. - Messaging - List of messages. - Last message looks like sent to Reactor Core Overseer. - Reservoir Logs - It is a list of dates and notations about water level, flushing system, water temperature, temperature at the core. - All predate fall of ancient dwarven empire. - Reservoir Controls - Interface similar to what is in the workstation room, but options to shut them all down. - Problem with the drains - The main drain has been damaged.

Velkin is among the bank of cubes. Velkin asks what this means, how do you find anything.

Thorfus notices that the labels on the cubbies correspond to the Reservoir Logs.

Kauri gives a quick tutorial about how to access a cube. Requires a pedestal or transpatial energy to activate - if you can manipulate it. Prix comes over and shows us. She is surprised and wonders if the DVLs are still enslaved here.

Kauri investigates how there is transpatial energy here.

Thorfus goes back through the logs to figure out what happened. The last one is "Is anyone still alive down there? I'm going to shut it down." "What is going on the emergency protocols have been initiated and the temperatures are spiked off the chart." The date is **6.035.10.01** Prix says, yeah. That's when we brought down the Crystal Tower. Before that logs sent.

Druul is at desk in room with a locker. Druul pins the locker shut with the devil fork, then rummages through the desk. It has a drawer to left that is empty. To right it has a small silver nugget in a weird shape, sort of convex like a bean. It is lying on a clipboard with notations in ancient dwarven with the pencil used to make the notes. The paper feels weird.

Druul checks the drawers and desk for anything interesting. The klaxon cuts off. There is a sloshing sound of water from the Southern hallway. There is nothing unusual about the desk.

Prix joins Kauri in checking out the emergency manual. Technical manuals and generators, etc. Velkin joins them and it is pretty much an impenetrable mass of details.

Druul goes to meet up with Thorfus with the items he found and retrieves his devil fork.

Thorfus determines that other messages don't appear relevant. There is no answer to what happened.

Druul joins us in the office and calls out for everyone and closes the door then lets us know there is an ooze and sloshing of water, and I found this, the clipboard and an item he found. It is a silver lenticular device like Thorfus'. The clipboard and paper is a record of who has taken something. There is a list of names and signatures and indications of breathing apparatus and diving suits being checked out and then returned.

Towards the bottom of the front page someone took out some stun sticks and they were returned to the weapons locker.

Glompus tells us about the red light door he found in the substation/core hallway.

Thorfus asks where the slime is. Thorfus goes and locks the door to the lavatory.

Velkin & Peronelle searches the footlockers. There are platinum coins and other trinkets.

Velkin wonders if he knows what the greenish ooze is and if it can be stored in a glass jar.

Thorfus asks Druul where he found the clipboard and lenticular device.

Kauri and Prix check out the cube, Felix watches their backs, and the rest go check out the room with the desk. Druul takes us to the desk. The locker is a bit narrower than the entry area about 5 feet across.

The sloshing could be like water sloshing in a container. Thorfus cautions to avoid the ramp and water.

Druul didn't notice anything unusual about the locker.

Thorfus throws open the door as we are all ready for action. Inside the locker are two sticks capped off with prongs and have switched on the haft. Stun sticks. At the far end there are batteries slotted in. Standard ancient dwarven batteries, 3 charges each. Wrong kind of batteries for shear rifles. Two slots each due to length. We give one to Renthark.

The opening the slopes into the water is ten by ten.

Druul hands over the whip to Glompus. This gives him room to take the other stun stick.

Glompus looks toward the water and about 15 feet down it is flooded.

Glompus skips some rocks into the water. The water is very warm. Nothing leaps out.

Thorfus locks the door in the hallway leading to the desk in the room next to the sloping passage.

We meet up with Velkin and Peronelle. They have found 53 pp and platinum signet ring and a platinum arm band.

Velkin mentions getting a sample of green slime or whatever it is. Thorfus says we're not doing that now.

We join back up with Prix and Kauri. Prix says the good news, the cube in the pedestal is a comprehensive rundown of the reactor at the station and is reminding me of the information when we planned to sabotage this place. I think we have a good understanding. Whoever's office this is, the last thing he did was reference the shut down procedure for the reactor core, we don't have the overseer keys. Whoever was here and someone else had a key.

What are we going to do with the reactor and this jubilee? The illustration of the control keys are illustrations of real keys, so not platinum control keys.

Is there something spinning, like a turbine. That is the reactor core, so the core is the master of revels.

Velkin feels something in his mouth. It is hard. One of his teeth fell out. Dangers of Trans Spatial Energy poisoning. Velkin mentions to Kauri and Prix. Tell me why this is happening? This just fell out of my mouth, and drops his tooth in their hands.

He is feeling a little bit weak. In fact, feeling week to the point of all attributes at -1. Kauri says he doesn't feel very great either.

Velkin slaps Druul upside the head to appear. A front tooth is missing. Glompus thinks they are running a little bit hot.

Velkin offers up his arm for cure disease....