Session Thirteen (Graveyard of Empires Summary)
(Sorry for the late write-up, busy week)
The party returns to the Cock and Bull at sundown, just in time for the city-wide curfew. The Inn is still housing a large number of Islanders, taking shelter from the rioting, and the usual atmosphere has been replaced by a quieter one. Holden is still acting as a doorman.
As we enter, Elspeth calls us over to tell us that there had been several people looking for the group whilst we were out. Jocassa had been by, asking for us to visit her in Newtown, as well as a shady character looking for Sthorm, our long-missing thief.
After dinner, Tarion, Faldspar and Thorfus decide to head around to the townhouse. A Greycloak is waiting for them, who after a moments pause, reveals himself to be Perette. The Greycloak is checking up on us, particularly after our altercation with Elain Grell’s gang.
The boy’s uncle, Magistrate Arden Grell didn’t take too kindly to us squaring off against them, as well as our appropriation of Elain’s sword, which happened to be a family heirloom, salvaged from one of Baldric Evenkeel’s foes. He’d called for our apprehension for assault and theft, only to be quietened when Lord Thornton had asked the question of why the students had been out after curfew in the first place.
Unfortunately, Thornton still wants to question us, and sent Perette to bring us in. It seems however, that Perette has taken a liking to us, and elects to tell Thornton he was unable to meet us due to being ‘busy’ with something in Newtown. He also warns us to be careful with the law.
The subject changes to our involvement with Beren, widower of Kaitlyn and murderer of the mayor. The man is now dead, his head found in the canal, but the question arose that a man supposedly having spent his entire life as a poor labourer was surprisingly skilled with a sword when he assaulted the mayor.
The entire group of people associated with the Bullywug kidnapping are such being brought in for questioning, including us, as we all had some connection to Beren through it. Advising us to not be at home for a short while, Perette then leaves.
Wary of traps, the three finally enter the townhouse, and go to bed. Axel stays a while in the Inn, mingling with the townfolk there, but doesn’t learn anything new except that most intend to return home the next day.
Joining the others in the house, he gets caught up on the meeting with Perette, and he and Thorfus agree that we should set a watch. Aside from someone distant shouting on Axel’s watch, and a pair of figures, one human-sized, one shorter, running down the street on Thorfus’, the night passes without incident.
The next morning, after some discussion, the party decides they should stash thier money somewhere safer for the time being. After some thought, they decide to ask Rowland, and laden themselves up, hiding the lockboxes inside thier backpacks.
Rowland’s goodwill continues, and though unusual, he doesn’t mind locking up our lockboxes after we assure him it’s just money within. He’s happy to have our trust.
We then head to the paper bazaar, where Faldspar searches out Velten. The mage tosses an inkwell at him, which he sidesteps. This causes Velten to initially mistake him for a mage, and when Faldspar reveals he is an illusionist, remarks that perhaps he was at the back of the class.
Faldspar buys the writing supplies necessary to copy down his new spell, when Jardin appears. Naturally, the party is suspicious of someone we have confirmed is evil, but he is merely shopping, and even recommends Faldspar visits Wright’s General Store should he need some training. Edus Applebee reportedly would help him.
Whilst Faldspar heads off to a cafe to copy the spell, the rest of the group head off to the General Store. Tarion talks to Withem Wright, who communicates secretly using thief’s cant sign language, asking if Tarion is ‘one of us’. Tarion responds in kind, undercover of thier verbal conversation.
Axel gets bored and goes to stand outside, and everyone follows, allowing them to talk more freely. Withem tells Tarion to seek out Gutter’s Mad Dogs, and specifically a half-orc named Gartham for training. She advises Tarion that they’ll send him a message.
After this we head up to Rowlands again, this time to retrieve Ir’Alle’s morningstar, newly decorated and enscripted.
Rejoining with Faldpar, we head to the Flotsam and Jetsam, we once more hire Kilmar, Sturloc and Kottar, passing them the extra supplies we gathered, then head towards the University, watching all the time for people following.
The University itself is quiet, the gates closed, and we enter the sewers without trouble, following the now familiar path back to the Goblin’s home. The tattoo’ed goblin greet us as usual. He informs us that the area has been quiet as of late, and they’ve decided to stay.
We call in a favour from them, asking the goblins to carry back and old onto some tapestries from the tomb until we return for them. They refuse to enter the tomb itself, but follow us to the opening. Roping down, we retrace our steps, gathering the two closest tapestries and passing them up to the goblins.
On the way to the second, we come across a sphere sat in the middle of the room, motionless. Unusure of what to do, Axel tosses gears around it, trying for a reaction. Each time, the sphere, spins around and inspects the gear, returning to it’s original spot after. After several failed attempts to actually hit the sphere, Thorfus takes over and hits it directly.
The sphere instantly charges us, seams appearing in it’s body, but it is felled by Ir’Alle’s club before anything can happen, and begins to hiss and spit like a boiling kettle. Thinking quickly, Faldspar bashes it away with his staff, and we hunker down behind the tapestry as it explodes.
We have to put out fire that caught the tapestry, but retrieve it anyway. Heading deeper into the tomb, we resolve to concentrate our search on finding the caretaker, deciding to finish exploring the area we had previously discovered. As we progress, we find that the doors and janitor-bot’s hatch that we had previously spiked have been unspiked. Respiking just in case, we continue east and south, finding a room with three sarcophagi as expected.
Not wanting to deal with the paper-thing automaton’s again, the group lines up and destroys them all simultaneously. After this, we check the coffins, pushing the buttons to see the animated lids. One here is different, instead of moving, the replica cube instead glows, revealing the letters, adcfg repeated over it in ancient dwarven. We loot the coffins as usual, finding less than previous coffins.
Heading back and further south, we find a locked door Tarion cannot open, and so we try another. The room beyond holds another pedestal at it’s walls are lined with numerous alcoves, each one holding a data cube, for a total 120. After consideration about taking them, we decide that there information may be less important than those we found with the dead dwarves.
Further west, we find another three sarcophagi, notable in that they are all completely plain. Each one holds a jawless dwarf in plain-black robes, with these being the first skeletons to not have the top of thier skulls removed.
We try the locked door again, Tarion trying to brute force it open first, then Axel succeeding in opening it the same way. We enter a small room that almost appears to be a cosy apartment, with a kitchen area and a chair, table and bookcase.
Ir’Alle inspects the bookcase, finding numerous Ancient Dwarven tombs on the subjects of Astrology and Astronomy, mixed in with romance fiction.
Thorfus picks up a notebook from the table, which appears to be some kind of personal diary, each entry counting up in decimal places coupled with abbreviations of what may be coordinates.
It is only half full, and flipping to the end, he reads what seems to be the final entries of a dwarven caretaker. They speak of explosions in the south, and a crytal tower being destroyed. Abandonment with no word from Marshalls or Voices. Savages and a worsening rebellion, driving them north. ‘They’ll soon be wielding those they have stolen from us…’
It ends with ‘This tomb must not be desecrated’, and appears to be the final farewell of the last caretaker, some two thousand years ago. We take the all the books with us.
Along a small corridor, we find a dusty bedroom. There is a body on the bed, surrounded by dark stains, the top of it’s skull messsily removed. There is a large key on the table, which we take.
Leaving the books back at the entrance, we head north into the tomb, finding an undamaged gate leaning against a wall, next to a previously blocked passage. Remarking a trap with chalk, we head east looking for a secret door. We collect another tapestry and spy a small glowing orb. Axel and Tarion hit it with arrows, the elf’s destroying it. We enter a room with two sarcophagi topped with female dwarves wielding staves and notice a humming noise in the background. Thorfus heads down to the the trapped door with the key, but it opens without incident thanks to the key, revealing the room with the rotating bridge.
A second pedestal had joined the one in the centre now, this one omitting a brighter heat source, and we prepare to fight.