These magical items look out of place, perhaps they belong to Khonnir? We should return them
When Chakos reaches the Foundry Tavern, he sees the place more of a mess than normal. Val Baine screams when you enter. You see that she has a pair of grippers in her hand and a wrench in the other in a defensive stance. When she sees that it is you, she says, "There was someone here! He was searching through the gadgets in our house, so I ran here. I'm scared. I don't know if they are still here. Please..." Her body is trembling.
"I concur that the magical items are likely Khonnir's, or those of other unfortunate delvers either with him or in other parties. They can wait until he regains his senses, I'm certain."
"What do you think they are after? Let's grab it and get out of here. If combat erupts, run to the house of Brigh and get my friends. Oh, and we found Khonnir."
"We'll want to make Khonnir presentable for when Val arrives", Astra says and makes sure the councilman doesn't have drool over his face or anything. She'll take fifteen minutes to give him a shave as well if he's looking awfully scruffy.
After a while, an acolyte returns and says that the Town Hall just closed. But a clerk said to return in the morning. Dolga appears shortly after and says, "You found him. What happened down there, lass? Demons from the abyss or Dark Land aberrations?"
Liz nods to Dolga. Neither demons or Darklands, although there were odd creatures that might be from there. We found ourselves in a strange meal structure that was inhabited by gremlins, undead, constructs and what seemed to be some band of bandits. We found Khonnir encased in a tube and rendered unable to speak or walk due to stabs in his legs and strange tiny beings injected into him.
We also found the missing Brighites, unfortunately, they were overwhelmed by russet mold and transformed into Vegepygmies
[
Dolga nods. "There's always something down in the depths. Why my people climbed up into the surface in the first place. Anyway, I know it wasn't part of your task but did you learn anything about the torch down there?"
She runs her hand along the adamantine warhammer at her side. The sounds of adventure and danger seem to make her pulse and breathing quicken.
Still nothing yet, we did meet a strange woman named Meyanda who was very fixed on defending some strange machinery and warned us off before we had a chance to examine them. She might have something to do with this and so we will no doubt have to confront her.
Sneek accompanies Chakos to inform the girl. Seeing Val so spooked by the intruder, Sneek immediately searches the house for any clues, persons or tracks.
After hearing the scream Sneek joins Chakos outside and does the same as he did in the house.
If available, we'll load the body aboard a cart and take it, along with any evidence Sneek finds, and whatever gadgets the girl wants to protect. We'll take all of this and head back to the party.
Oh, and a heal check to see if I can determine cause of death here.
"Confronting Meyanda should be our next priority", Astra reiterates her opinion now that Councilor Freddert is present.
Quite, I am feeling up to it since I still have some of my spells available.
It's difficult for Sneek to tell anything, because the house is usually a mess of gadgets, tools and metal scattered in every possible location. For a fraction of a second, the ratfolk sees a man in a cloak wearing ropes over his fists. The man jumps out a window and dashes away.
Chakos (and Sneek) can see that the cause of death was the big gash (made by some kind of long sword or axe) in the acolyte's chest. Sneek sees medium humanoid footprints that lead away from the house.
Val says, "No, there's nothing I need from here. Most of its broken anyway." She forces a laugh.
After some time, Chakos, Sneek and Val Baine rejoin the party at the Temple of Brigh. As they enter, Dolga says, "There aren't any purple haired people here in Torch. She must be from elsewhere... Maybe the River Kingdoms or Scrapwall-what happened to him?"
The dwarven councilor motions to the acolyte in the wagon.
Liz is disturbed at the sight of the dead man. My goodness, this is getting worse and worse. First earth tremors, the man who we rescued can't recognize us and now this.
"Scrapwall", Astra muses. "I have reason to believe that the scavengers working with Meyanda were from Scrapwall -- servitors of an entity named Hellion. I suspect Meyanda is one as well. I feel certain that the earth tremors are connected to whatever Meyanda is doing, and what has extinguished the torch. I need to get back to her, and examine her equipment."
No doubt over her dead body since she almost shot your toes off. Liz waits for cChakos and Sneek to explain what had just happened.
"Someone was looting the tavern, and this fellow died. Not sure of the connections. Sneek found some footprints. We didn't see what attacked the dead guy. "
Perhaps we can follow him and see why this happened.
Chakos shakes his head, "well, he's kind of dead, so he's not going anywhere."
'Him' as in the one who was looting the tavern and no doubt killed the acolyte.
You follow the tracks using Sneek's perception from before. After about half an hour, you find yourselves in the warehouse district. The tracks lead to an abandoned looking warehouse, two stories with boarded up doors and windows.
So this is the place? Liz wonders. Since it is night, we can hopefully catch them loafing, let us try to find a way in.
The boards block out most of the view inside the warehouse. Peering inside it is dark and there is no movement. Pulling at the doors, you notice that the boards don't actually prevent the doors from being opened. Regardless, they are locked.
I'll make sure the Life Link is up on Sneek. Weapon out.
Looks like your area of expertise, Sneek.
Sneek, having followed the tracks, from the corpse to the apparently not so abandoned warehouse was waiting for his companions to arrive. After waiting for a while without any sign of them he decided to go get them. Returning later with the rest he takes out his recently acquired tools and tries to use his skills to open the locked door.
Sneek takes his time and unlocks one of the doors of the warehouse. Looking around (as soon as someone casts light) you see several crates and hear a humming noise. The second level also has several crates. There are no people inside.
Liz will cast Light, a small ball of glowing magic appearing in her hand. What is that humming noise? Liz tries to find the source.
Liz moves around listening to the noise and reaches a crate that is larger than the others. Through the slits, she can see some kind of large machine inside it.
We got ourselves a big machine! We are obligated to poke it with sticks in an attempt to find out what it does!
Liz gets a crowbar and starts opening the crate.
Astra will try to know whose warehouse this is.
I'll keep watch.
After a few minutes, Liz opens the crate using the crowbar. She reveals a large machine with several buttons and screens, as well as a metal dish with several pointy metal bits pointing out of it. There is Androffan on one of the screens.
I'm reading some Androffan here. 'Power transmission is 90% complete. Elapsed time to completion: 24 hours. Warning: Transferring all the power from the "reactor core" will result in a mile-wide explosion. Shut off and emergency shut off have been disabled.'
Liz looks at the others. This is very bad, a mile-wide explosion will destroy Torch if this reactor core thing is neaby. Liz tries to figure out if she can get info on this reactor core.
*poke poke poke poke*
Looking at the displays, Liz believes that the reactor core is underneath Torch, likely in the Black Hill caves. It has been sending power to the relay for the past week or so.
You suddenly hear faint drums in the distance. Argug perks his head up.
"My people call me. There will be war." He grins maliciously, fangs and teeth gleaming in the night. "I'll help you with this first, before I leave." He grips his greataxe tightly.
The ground rumbles for another minute.
The reactor core is underneath Torch, most likely the Black Hill caves and has been doing this for about a week. We best get back into those caves, that strange woman and those machines with her are probably what we need to check out.
The doors suddenly all open. Two cloaked figures appear at each of the doors to the north, west and east. They throw off their cloaks and reveal ropes tied around their hands. At the southern door where Chakos is standing, two cloaked figures flank a third cloaked figure. They remove their cloaks.
Garmen Ulreth smiles at Chakos. "Well, I'm quite surprised to find you heroes here. Sadly, it seems you will be another party that died to the underground cave." He flicks his rapier and settles into a fighting stance.
1. Everyone
2. Ropefist Gang and Garmen Ulreth
"Sorry Liz, can't..."
Chakos will power Attack, charge, smite against Garmen.
Crit confirm against the (hopefully) flat footed opponent.
So, 39 damage if the 17 confirms!!
Garmen's face contorts in surprise as the bluish half elf charges and strikes him. A deep gash cleaves through his chest and the rogue falls to the ground. "Lucky bastard..." he murmurs. His eyes stay open and staring at the points of light in the sky.
Sneek addresses the remaining thugs after seeing Garmen go down in one hit.
Listen up b%#+!es. Silverdisk Gambling Hall is ours now. So you work for us now. Put down your weapons or I let my friends with the big axes take you out permanently!
HP 20/20
AC 11/11/10
Effects:
Hand of Apprentice:6/7
Liz fires a crossbow at a thug 25 feet away. That si right! Run, run! Or you'll be well done! Liz cackles
Astra charges one of the ropefists with her stun baton.
Sneek's speech does not affect the ropefists. As a group of thugs, they don't really care about each other and despite Chakos' attack, they think you are still easy pickings.
Liz's bolt almost strikes one of the thugs in the shoulder, but instead it slams into the door frame. Astra swings the electric baton at one of the eastern thugs and connects. The thug grunts against the blow and resulting charge, and remains standing.
Argug charges the group to the west and swings his greataxe at the thug's head. The thug's head rolls to the floor.