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

Session 181, May 15 2024

Introduction

We continue at 8:30PM on the 27th of Anurilden (00.000.08.03 on the Apocalypse Clock) with the party having climbed up from the lowest depths of the Necropolis to some unknown level where Velkin has found evidence of Drow and violence. Are there other enemies like the tiger beetles waiting in ambush for the column of refugees from Dun'Khel? Did Lolth finish her business in the lower levels and seal the stairwell? Will such a seal prevent the Silence (or whatever else it might have been killing civilians) from following? Can the Necropolis be a safe refuge? Find out next time; or not.

Larry's Summary

We let the masses rest while the party explores the former drow barracks to clear it.

It was garrisoned by drow of House Bhelf who like House Herig that tried to maintain good relations with the other denizens of the underdark.

This drow barracks has an office on the upper floor where someone was killed and the body dragged away. A desk with blood soaked papers and books with some blood stains. Velkin finds a drow war college book about automatons, and upper levels being off limits. The owner of the book is in a watch tower. The Silent and Ring Cities are to be left to their own devices.

In case of emergency, there is a gathering place for defense of The Silver Throne and the inner spire. Many machines directed the drow.

Second book is a memoranda/diary. Tracking of watches by lanterns. Later in the book an emergency with intruders past the elevators.

Third book is drow poetry.

There is a noise like a slow alarm coming from the other side of a closed door and two windows.

Thorfus opens the door and there is fresh air. There is a definite smell of dead things like a crypt.

Peeking out, the front of the chamber the walls continue off to either side and there are more windows in each direction.

Stepping out kind of see some shapes across from me.

Thorfus pulls out his continual light coin, revealing an almost like a boulevard with many structures.

There is no visible ceiling. The wall with the door and windows goes up about 25 feet.

There may be more buildings or structures. It seems like a street in a city that is completely dark, smells of death and it empty, then there is a bwap noise. It is loud and deep and makes things rumble.

Maybe a bit more to the left.

Thorfus tells Glompus to guard the doorway. Thorfus goes diagonally to the left to get the the edge of the light on the doorway and the wall to try to see across the path and see what is to the left.

Prix tells Velkin and Druul that the dwarf has gone outside.

Thorfus can see the opposite side and sees stores and houses perhaps a few stories tall and alleyway between the buildings. It is a completely pitch black city.

The ceiling is way far above based on the way the air is moving and a lot of open space.

Velkin asks Prix for invisibility and has Vikram carry him and Druul walks over with Thorfus.

Glompus and Renthark stay at the door and Glompus asks Renthark to find a bar for the door.

Renthark starts disassembling one of the beds.

Velkin has Vikram carry him beyond the light of the continual light coin to the left and upwards.

Behind the building we came out of, there is an actual wall where the spiral staircase is.

Far above it might be bridges or something, and laid out below, there are streets based on the tops of the buildings.

Druul pulls out his continual light coin and Thorfus moves beyond to the left so see both sides of the street then there is another loud whap.

Kind of stomping-ish, this thing comes out of one of the alleyways. About 5 feet tall. Kind of circular with three stumpy legs and three arms. As it stumbles out, there is a whap sound as the sides of it's body vibrates. It has an opening to the top and is really loud.

A singular eye focuses in Thorfus' direction.

Thorfus tries to talk to it in ancient dwarven and says "Hello, I'm knew here, can you tell me what's going on here?"

It looks at Thorfus for a bit and walks towards him. Thorfus tries common, still no speech.

It leans so its eye is looking and it swells up and bwaps right in front of you. Can feel everything vibrating, all my gear, etc.

The bwaps seems to go a bit longer and some of the spittle lands on Thorfus.

Finally, the bwaps trails off with ringing in its ears. One arm comes out towards Thorfus with three fingers palm up.

Thorfus hands it an iron spike, holds it up to it's eye and deposits in the opening up top. It gums the spike and spits it out into the darkness.

Thorfus gives it a gold piece and puts out it's hand again more emphatically. Thorfus gives it ten more gold pieces. It puts it hand out and Thorfus gives it ten more and it puts it hand out again.

Ten more gp. and ten more until all gold is gone. Thorfus gives it ten platinum and it wants more. Thorfus gives it all of his platinum, and it eats it, then looks at Druul, who runs.

The creature grapples Druul, holds him over its mouth, and starts to shake him.

Thorfus asks Velkin if Vikram can make a bunch of gold to give this thing? Vikram makes 1,000 platinum pieces off to the side of where the creature is holding Druul away from the building we came out of.

The creature bwaps right at Druul the devil fork comes loose and falls in its mouth, gums it a bit and pulls it out with its third hand and tosses it to the ground.

As it is bwapping, the pile of coins jingles on the ground and then puts Druul on the ground but not letting go and starts piling the gold into its mouth.

Glompus moves over the take off Druul's coin purse to set it on the ground.

Velkin tells Vikram to set him down and try to pry Druul loose.

Vikram pries it loose, and it almost reacts but it keeps shoveling platinum into its maw.

Druul pulls out his lute to try and enchant it using the song, Gaze of Marientaxus. The creature saves and keeps eating.

Vikram points out that he can make 1,000 gp of metal once more today (3 times total).

The creature finishes up the platinum and starts to look around.

Velkin asks Vikram to make bars of 50 coins each to lead the creature away. Off to the right. The creature bwaps and hears the rattling of the platinum bar and picks it up and shoves it in his mouth. Placing another bar and it follows and eats. As future bars are placed, the creature seems to pick up on the pattern, eating the bars.

The others go back in the door. Thorfus goes to where he saw the creature emerge from a side street or alley.

There are no signs of busted doors or walls. No dust due to strong breezes.

Velkin leads til there is an enormous funeral pyre of dead drow and finds a temple to Lolth.

Someone is/was living here. An obvious camp with an area for fire, a sleeping area, but no one is here now. Not a place someone would sleep when the temple is in regular use.

Velkin leads further into the building.

Glompus's Letter

Hey there Spud,

Last I wrote, Grandpappy got a lightning axe! Hopefully Grandpappy won’t have to use it for a while. Anyways, We kept on exploring, into some drow barracks. Before we left, Velkin mentioned gnomes looking tasty. I think he was joking? We’ve been traveling together for a while now. But I figured it’d be best to leave someone to guard the gnomes just in case. In the barracks, I saw track of a giant spider going out a window. Velkin and Druul went to explore the interior while Thorfus, Renthark, and I checked out the window. We were taking stock of things when we heard a loud shaking boom that shook the whole place.

I popped back inside went inside to ask the gnomes if they'd heard anything. They had, and I told them we were going to keep investigating. They asked if they could smoke pipeweed, and I told them to share with the dwarves. Trying to get hospitality going between our folks, you know? The dwarves can be a bit stodgy, but they took us in after... what happened.

We opened the door and continued our brave search outside. We looked around for a bit more with some of Grandpappy’s expert tracking skills and there were more booms that were easy enough for a gnome of my long experience to know we were on the right track. After a few minutes, a weird monster came up to Thorfus. It was circular with stumpy legs and arms. Kind of cute in a weird sort of way. Thorfus tried to talk to it, but it just thwacked the ground in front of him. That didn’t work, so Thorfus tried... feeding it stuff? It didn’t seem to like iron spikes too much, but it did really like gold, so Thorfus ended up feeding it all of his gold. After that, it went after Druul and tried to shake him upside down to get his gold. Velkin had Vikram distract the creature by summoning a bunch of platinum. I tried to distract him by taking Druul's gold to feed to him, but Druul yelled at me and said he didn't want to give it up. I didn’t think orcs were like dwarves like that, but here we are. Eventually, we gave it enough stuff to get a bit of space between us and it. The monster eventually retreated into the city and Thorfus gave chase, but didn’t see much.

After that encounter, we kept on exploring the city with Velkin leading the way. We ended up finding a temple to our spider friend Lolth. We’re about to go in, hopefully Grandpappy doesn’t get eaten. I’ll write again if I don’t. Love you Spud.

Love, Grandpappy Glompus 27th of Anurilden