This is our Finale session for the summer, during the hiatus we’ll be delving into the Savage Worlds system.
Everyone is present and accounted for in this session, Biminey, Stak, T’Balktu, Torel, Visra. Our heroes have reached level 10 in the quest to end the dangers to their little corner of the world.
We join them in Aricee’s lair where the dragon, shifted into human female form, instructs them in their tasks, how they must defeat the Guardian of the Lance of Unmaking, recover the Lance and then go to Darkmith to destroy the Chaosborn.
T’Balktu and Aricee spend a few hours alone while the rest work on their gear and Biminey crafts magical items. Aricee gifts T’Balktu for his performance with a matching set of axes, the greataxe known as Ghost Slayer and the throwing axe known as Splintertree. He is pleased as was she. And it’s not everyone who gets to lay with a dragon. Which I’m sure will have no dire consequences…
They proceed toward the Guardian’s lair after Aricee assures them that she will help them return after they find out it’s a chute down into a room. Biminey uses his Ladder ritual to make it easy to descend into the depths.
There they find a floorless room with flipping platforms on gears and pistons to stand on. As the fourth one comes down the platform flips and almost tosses Biminey [I think] into the bottomless darkness but a quick grab by one of the other’s saves him from certain death. [Yes this was a return to the Save or Die of the old days but it is the season finale and the dangers are ramped up accordingly.]
They spread out and defeat the constructs that are attacking them for serious damage, inadvertently spreading out and reducing the risk of any particular platform flipping over. [A platform flipped on a roll of 15 or high, +2 for each person on the platform over 1. By splitting up they made it a lot less likely that a platform would flip. Purely unintentional on their part.]
They moved around the room, jumping from platform to platform with Biminey working his way closer to the central brain to shut it down but the amount of damage the party can pump out swiftly overwhelmed the mobile portions of the construct. There was another bit of a hair raiser as T’Balktu jumped on the platform that Biminey was on and caused it to flip over sending T’Balktu plunging to his death only to be snagged at the last second by Bimney’s Acrobatics roll (which he has no skill in) saving T’Balktu’s player from having two deaths in the campaign.
Under the platforms they uncovered the Lance and retrieved with T’Balktu nimbly climbing the pistols and gears to get to it. There was no sign of Aricee so they left the room of the guardian by T’Balktu using the lance to open a passage through the shielding magic.
Aricee was waiting at the top and she had a bit of an interlude with T’Balktu in a frozen moment of time where she gave him her True Name so he could destroy the crystal binding her to her service as the tunnel’s guardian. When he destroyed the crystal embedded into her chest a two headed dragon shadow was cast from the explosion of light. T’Balktu kept this bit of information to himself.
They talked with Aricee about what they were supposed to do, “Kill the chaosborn” and she was going to get them to their destination and bring their airship to them and support them in their battle.
[In an aside, with herself free from her captivity she didn't give a rat's ass about the chaosborn, a minor annoyance only to her and simply wanted the party out of her hair figuratively speaking. When she didn't show up to help, when they had to walk back because there was no airship, and later on as Biminey figures out the whole 'explode the airship' was bullshit the light began to dawn on the group. "Never trust a dragon." isn't a phrase that came about by whim and whimsy.]
The group found themselves in Darkmith where a war was going on. They spotted the central power area and headed that way, failing their attempts to sneak through town and were surrounded by undead, summoned by Phy’el Fleshwalker for the battle. They defeated a huge swarm of undead only to seem hundreds more running after them. When the undead all stopped and Phy’el himself appeared. “If you win, remember I did you no harm when I could have.” he says and all the undead drop motionless to the ground as the cut the strings binding them to him. Phy’el has long held a grudge against Liloth and her King and like all good evil people is more than happy to screw them over for slights they have done him. And he’s also hedging his bets, he senses the magic artifact the group possesses, trying to curry a little future favor perhaps.
They push on and reach the ziggurat of power where the Chaosborn is being reborn. Liloth his lover is climbing the tower toward him.
T’Balktu kicks on his Ghost Slayer ability and charges the Creature, slaying it, at least it’s human form, releasing the chaosbeast within. He continues to use the Lance of Unmaking against the creature, finally destroying it and the group turns its attention to Liloth who’s a little upset at the events. But the group has grown too strong for this little regional hazard and mops up the floor with Liloth and the pet shadows.
They recover a Shadowblade, a dreadful greatsword from the shadowfey that was the Chaosborn’s weapon and very gingerly maneuver it into a bag of holding without touching it.
They help mop up the city, joining in with the hobgoblin tribes battling the minor darkness’s still released in the city alongside the strange eyeless, mouthless priests of the white king.
Leaving the city, on foot, they trudge through the swamps surrounding the city and stop off to spend a couple of days with the Soul Eaters in their home range, the tattoo’s on their arms are extended by the tattoo artists of the tribe, depicting their battles against the darkness in stylized abstracts.
They continue back to Larkson where they find Teagon working a power play to take over the city and remove the Council. He’s hired more mercenaries from Anvil and after all the fighting his forces outnumber the Watch. With the group informing him that the deed is done and the city is safe he bargains with them to join in.
The group does and become partners with Teagon. They arrange for Garon and the just appointed Merchant faction Councilor Neev to be moved out of power gently as possible. They work a deal to keep the Watch alive and in their control and direct all martial activities in the city, although everyone understands that with Teagon holding the purse strings that feeds the mercenairies that that control could be tenuous. But Teagon is smart and wise and understands the power that the group presents so the deal is made and at this time both sides appear to be genuinely interested in keeping it. The group will receive a 1000 golds a month each for their portion of the bargain, a fortune really for this town although Biminey is going to donate his income to the Watch to help train, equip and restore them. The Watch lost most of their men, dead or injured beyond fighting ability, and what’s left are the lucky, green and inept without only a small cadre of veterans.
They bring the airship into town and then fly out to the slaver stronghold searching for the two ships full of the town’s women and children, finding only a work crew lead by a slaver working on rebuilding the islands buildings. They capture them all, interrogate them and then destroy the newly constructed works and building materials and fly back to their city.
Sushanna tells Biminey that one of the until now dead lights on the ship’s consoles lit green for a few hours one day while they were gone (during their walk back to Larkson).
When they get back to the city, there is talk of a flying creature spotted in the skies out to sea, seen more by it’s blocking out the stars than any direct visual. It was assumed to be the group’s airship but when word got around that it wasn’t then other people stepped forth saying it was a vast flying creature, a dragon certainly.
What it was, what the green light means, where the slavers took the slaves, where did Phy’el wander off to, where the slavers main bases are and what they’re doing, the rebuilding of the city of Larkson and the outcome of the battle of Darkmith, these questions and more will have to wait till we pick up this campaign and enter the Tier of the Paragon’s…
