Sessions 6-8.
Session 6: "Hungry Hungry Hippos" (August 5)
Having defeated the cult of Graz'zt, the party decides that their next move should be tracing the oblex boxes to their source: Darjheim Caverns, an Underdark realm ruled by the Gray King -- a duergar warlord named Gralkhar Fellgren. The party sets out upriver in a chartered riverboat toward the uppermost city on the Simrijj River, a trading port named Adwerro. Adwerro serves as the shipping point for goods entering or leaving the mighty dwarvish citadel-city of Kwolgarrash, high in the foothills of the Rangrum Mountains, at the very eastern edge of the Rajgani Empire. Kwolgarrash is an ancient dwarven realm that is something between a committed ally and autonomous subject of the Rajgani Empire, ruled by the High Artificer Torgga Trollanvil. From Kwolgarrash, the party hopes to enter the mountains and find the way to Darjheim, the entrance to which is somewhere in the remote heights of the Rangrum range.
The party's boat only completes half of the planned journey, however, before an airship bears down on them at high speed from the south. Vaelin recognizes it: It is the giff airship he had been investigating before he was captured by the doppelgange posing as Lady Rothenel. The giff are a hippo-like race of unknown origin, who appear in Quol' only in roving mercenary companies. The mercenary company aboard the airship is led by Captain Loyalard Brund. They are involved in smuggling substantial amounts of gunpowder across the Empire, including the gunpowder that wound up in the airship bomb, a plot the party thwarted way back in Session 0.
The party's boat, a simple river vessel, is unable to deter or escape the giff airship's advance. The boat ties up near the bank, beneath the cover of some high trees, while the giff draw nearer. Cannons roar from the airship but have no effect. At last, the giff draw within hailing range. Captain Brund announces the arrival of Brund's Magnificent Fusiliers, here on an errand from their employer -- a very important, very rich, and very powerful personage whose plans have been thwarted one too many times by the upstart adventurers. For the giff, it is a cleanup mission. The mercenaries aboard the airship throw down boarding ropes and their attack begins.
In the ensuing scrap, Vaelin's horse is blown out from under him by a grenade, and Ward is knocked unconscious by a cannonball. Dara uses her fey powers to charm Captain Brund, but has him walk off his airship instead of calling off the attack. In the confusion, Lan climbs aboard the airship and hides in a barrel.
Through a mix of charm and persuasion, the party makes a truce while Brund is rescued. The mercenaries have a talk with the adventurers during the truce, during which Vaelin claims his Order will match the giffs' employer's offer and hire them on. Captain Brund agrees to take the party to the outskirts of Kwolgarrash, where Vaelin may arrange a parley with his Order -- on the condition that the party surrender their weapons and arcane focuses. Vaelin and Ward (who has been revived) are disarmed; Snadwick and Dara, who have more subtle focuses, secretly manage to keep theirs.
The party, now captive, launch in the giff airship, their fate in the hands of Vaelin's ruse.
Session 7: "You've Got a Friend in Me; or, Can I Shove a Grenade up the Spider's Butt?" (August 12)
During the flight of the airship, the party is treated with honor and respect. They are given free access to the surface deck, and left without ropes or chains to hinder them. Pending the outcome of the parley with Vaelin's Order of the Talon, the adventurers are considered to be foes who fought well, as well as potential employers. Their arms, and Snadwick's spellbook, are locked away in the pilot's cabin, which they are forbidden to access.
The party learns that the giffs' employer, Trinilane, head of the magic-item-dealing company Aanja Subscribers in the city of Malimpel, is a formidable being, one not to be angered lightly. Trinilane and his lieutenant, the construct known as the Starling, are both resistant (and possibly immune) to the power of magic, a fact that the magic-despising giff find impressive. His goal, so far as Brund is willing to explain it, is to destabilize the new peace between Malimpel and Rajgan.
After something like 24 hours' travel, the airship comes to a halt, and the landing party -- including Vaelin, Captain Brund, and five other giff mercenaries -- is let off. The airship, piloted by the giff mercenary most grievously wounded in the previous day's battle, soars high to watch for enemies and to await Brund's signal. Lan emerges from his barrel upon perceiving the change in the ship, and begins sneaking around, aiming to get inside the pilot's cabin and commandeer the ship. Likewise, Dara, Snadwick, and Ward set their own plan in motion.
Dara charms one mercenary, removing him from the fight, and summons a pact-sword which Ward is able to use for a minute before it disappears. At the same time, Lan enters the pilot cabin and kills the wounded pilot with a single strike. His attempts at learning the airship's controls lead to hazardously tilted decks for those fighting outside.
The four adventurers dispatch the remaining giff (except for the one charmed by Dara, who gets tied up to await arrest), and between them, Snadwick and Lan figure out the controls and pilot the craft down to land, where Vaelin's Order has quickly overcome and disarmed Brund and his landing party. Brund, furious at this trickery, warns the party that Trinilane's vengeance is something to be feared.
The party keeps the airship as a prize, as well as its contents -- many many barrels of gunpowder, and much gold. They also keep the muskets and pistols of the mercenaries.
Upon being summoned to meet the High Artificer Torgga Trollanvil, the party gives an account of their imperial commission to track down those involved in the bomb plot and the wider oblex conspiracy, and the steps that have brought them here. Torgga proposes a joint mission: her city's troops will make a frontal assault on the duergar citadel in the Underdark, providing a distraction while the party finds the secret back way into Darjheim, through the ancient ruins of the dwarf king Borgol the Old.
[To save time, the dungeon crawl through the secret path was time-skipped. Incidents along the secret path were played in the following "flashback" session.]
The secret path through Borgol the Old's ruins brings the adventurers to the innermost of the many walls surrounding the Gray King's Keep. Nearing the end of the path, Snadwick is surprised by a voice speaking in her head, exclaiming at finding someone of "good heart" in such a wicked place. The voice turns out to be the telepathic communication of a lone flumph, a floating creature of the Underdark who feeds on the psychic powers of psionic creatures, in this case the duergar in their mighty city. Flumphs, however, are repelled by evil, and will cooperate with "good" creatures to defeat evil, even if it means losing their psionic food source. The lone flumph, who has grown up without a colony, is eager to help, and informs the party (through Snadwick) not only of the way forward, but also of the secrets it has overheard in its time feeding on the duergar.
The flumph gives Snadwick (and the rest of the party) major revelations:
The Gray King Gralkhar is in league with Trinilane, who is a type of fiend called a rakshasa. Trinilane can change shape and often appears as a tall, muscular human man with red hair, but his true form is a humanoid tiger; no matter what form he takes, his hands always appear to be on backwards. Trinilane, in turn, operates at the behest of none other than the Lich Queen herself, Gwydieth. The duergar, who despise all surface life, have consented to ally with the Lich Queen Gwydieth to unite the surface under her rule. An ancient, almost forgotten threat approaches from the cold between the stars -- foul, mind-devouring creatures in predatory ships shaped like nautiluses. The duergar still remember the last time the nautilus ships arrived in Quol', even if the soft surface races do not. The duergar once were slaves of the mind-devourers, and have kept alive the ancient hatred that once allowed them to break free of their clutches. By uniting his forces with those of the undead Gwydieth, Gralkhar hopes to defeat the nautilus ships once and for all -- and perhaps to remake the soft surface world into something harder, fiercer, crueler, and more to his liking.
Snadwick appears to be the only member of the party to appreciate the gravity of these revelations.
At the end of the secret path, the party emerges at a back gate in the innermost wall of the Gray King's Keep. There they fight two duergar spider-riders (who can turn their mounts and themselves invisible), as well as two duergar mind-masters, who use their psionic powers to create chaos among the adventurers. One of the mind-masters escapes, shrinking down to tiny size and running through a crack in the gate. The party employs their climbing kits to get over the wall, not knowing what awaits them.
Session 8: "Our Cat Just Punched Her to Death" (September 2)
Flashback session!
Before meeting the flumph and storming the gate, the party makes its way through the long-abandoned ruins of Borgol the Old, a once-mighty dwarf king who was overrun in ancient times by the duergar. The party has been joined by Sunrise After Storm, a middle-aged tabaxi airship-pirate who has turned over a new leaf and become a monk. Sunrise has been sent out by his monastery to track down an ancient item that had been stolen from them; clues suggest that it has made its way to the Gray King.
They encounter blood-sucking stirges, a pair of predatory gricks, and a deceptive room of statues, and must disturb the grave of the ancient king himself in order to locate a key. A magical alarm alerts a trio of duergar guards, led by Ghared, a spy. The duergar make no move to attack but refuse to budge; Ghared tells the party that only the worthy may meet with the Gray King, and no surface-dweller is worthy. Sunrise strikes first, punching Ghared to death, much to his own shock. The other duergar surrender after seeing their leader felled so quickly. They warn the group that a black dragon awaits them in the caverns ahead.
Soon enough, the party emerges on a ledge above a lake that stretches off into the darkness. A deep, rumbling voice, seeming to come from below them, warns them that they are in the realm of Nightscale. Snadwick (who speaks Draconic) recognizes that the voice comes from a young female black dragon. Nightscale says the party may live if they surrender their armor, their arms, and their treasure to her, and throw them all into the lake. "My arms?" shouts the literal-minded monk, in confusion. Snadwick stubbornly refuses, snapping at the dragon that they will do no such thing. Nightscale hisses angry insults and the "turtle," then flings herself out of the lake and into the air, breathing acid breath upon Snadwick, then bites and rakes her claws upon Dara.
A perilous fight ensues upon the ledge, but the party demonstrates a great deal of teamwork, working together to stun the dragon and keep her close to the ledge, within striking distance. Vaelin jumps upon her back and bashes the back of her head with his shield, while Sunrise stuns her with precise strikes to manipulate the dragon's ki. Wounded and alarmingly near death, Nightscale surrenders, telling the party they may have all of her treasure so long as they let her escape. She flies off, escaping, while the party makes their way to her hoard on an island in the middle of the lake.
There they find much gold and silver, as well as:
a wand of magic missles
a +2 greataxe bearing the smith-mark of Borgol the Old himself
a +1 shield
a potion of healing
a potion of flying
Having defeated the cult of Graz'zt, the party decides that their next move should be tracing the oblex boxes to their source: Darjheim Caverns, an Underdark realm ruled by the Gray King -- a duergar warlord named Gralkhar Fellgren. The party sets out upriver in a chartered riverboat toward the uppermost city on the Simrijj River, a trading port named Adwerro. Adwerro serves as the shipping point for goods entering or leaving the mighty dwarvish citadel-city of Kwolgarrash, high in the foothills of the Rangrum Mountains, at the very eastern edge of the Rajgani Empire. Kwolgarrash is an ancient dwarven realm that is something between a committed ally and autonomous subject of the Rajgani Empire, ruled by the High Artificer Torgga Trollanvil. From Kwolgarrash, the party hopes to enter the mountains and find the way to Darjheim, the entrance to which is somewhere in the remote heights of the Rangrum range.
The party's boat only completes half of the planned journey, however, before an airship bears down on them at high speed from the south. Vaelin recognizes it: It is the giff airship he had been investigating before he was captured by the doppelgange posing as Lady Rothenel. The giff are a hippo-like race of unknown origin, who appear in Quol' only in roving mercenary companies. The mercenary company aboard the airship is led by Captain Loyalard Brund. They are involved in smuggling substantial amounts of gunpowder across the Empire, including the gunpowder that wound up in the airship bomb, a plot the party thwarted way back in Session 0.
The party's boat, a simple river vessel, is unable to deter or escape the giff airship's advance. The boat ties up near the bank, beneath the cover of some high trees, while the giff draw nearer. Cannons roar from the airship but have no effect. At last, the giff draw within hailing range. Captain Brund announces the arrival of Brund's Magnificent Fusiliers, here on an errand from their employer -- a very important, very rich, and very powerful personage whose plans have been thwarted one too many times by the upstart adventurers. For the giff, it is a cleanup mission. The mercenaries aboard the airship throw down boarding ropes and their attack begins.
In the ensuing scrap, Vaelin's horse is blown out from under him by a grenade, and Ward is knocked unconscious by a cannonball. Dara uses her fey powers to charm Captain Brund, but has him walk off his airship instead of calling off the attack. In the confusion, Lan climbs aboard the airship and hides in a barrel.
Through a mix of charm and persuasion, the party makes a truce while Brund is rescued. The mercenaries have a talk with the adventurers during the truce, during which Vaelin claims his Order will match the giffs' employer's offer and hire them on. Captain Brund agrees to take the party to the outskirts of Kwolgarrash, where Vaelin may arrange a parley with his Order -- on the condition that the party surrender their weapons and arcane focuses. Vaelin and Ward (who has been revived) are disarmed; Snadwick and Dara, who have more subtle focuses, secretly manage to keep theirs.
The party, now captive, launch in the giff airship, their fate in the hands of Vaelin's ruse.
Session 7: "You've Got a Friend in Me; or, Can I Shove a Grenade up the Spider's Butt?" (August 12)
During the flight of the airship, the party is treated with honor and respect. They are given free access to the surface deck, and left without ropes or chains to hinder them. Pending the outcome of the parley with Vaelin's Order of the Talon, the adventurers are considered to be foes who fought well, as well as potential employers. Their arms, and Snadwick's spellbook, are locked away in the pilot's cabin, which they are forbidden to access.
The party learns that the giffs' employer, Trinilane, head of the magic-item-dealing company Aanja Subscribers in the city of Malimpel, is a formidable being, one not to be angered lightly. Trinilane and his lieutenant, the construct known as the Starling, are both resistant (and possibly immune) to the power of magic, a fact that the magic-despising giff find impressive. His goal, so far as Brund is willing to explain it, is to destabilize the new peace between Malimpel and Rajgan.
After something like 24 hours' travel, the airship comes to a halt, and the landing party -- including Vaelin, Captain Brund, and five other giff mercenaries -- is let off. The airship, piloted by the giff mercenary most grievously wounded in the previous day's battle, soars high to watch for enemies and to await Brund's signal. Lan emerges from his barrel upon perceiving the change in the ship, and begins sneaking around, aiming to get inside the pilot's cabin and commandeer the ship. Likewise, Dara, Snadwick, and Ward set their own plan in motion.
Dara charms one mercenary, removing him from the fight, and summons a pact-sword which Ward is able to use for a minute before it disappears. At the same time, Lan enters the pilot cabin and kills the wounded pilot with a single strike. His attempts at learning the airship's controls lead to hazardously tilted decks for those fighting outside.
The four adventurers dispatch the remaining giff (except for the one charmed by Dara, who gets tied up to await arrest), and between them, Snadwick and Lan figure out the controls and pilot the craft down to land, where Vaelin's Order has quickly overcome and disarmed Brund and his landing party. Brund, furious at this trickery, warns the party that Trinilane's vengeance is something to be feared.
The party keeps the airship as a prize, as well as its contents -- many many barrels of gunpowder, and much gold. They also keep the muskets and pistols of the mercenaries.
Upon being summoned to meet the High Artificer Torgga Trollanvil, the party gives an account of their imperial commission to track down those involved in the bomb plot and the wider oblex conspiracy, and the steps that have brought them here. Torgga proposes a joint mission: her city's troops will make a frontal assault on the duergar citadel in the Underdark, providing a distraction while the party finds the secret back way into Darjheim, through the ancient ruins of the dwarf king Borgol the Old.
[To save time, the dungeon crawl through the secret path was time-skipped. Incidents along the secret path were played in the following "flashback" session.]
The secret path through Borgol the Old's ruins brings the adventurers to the innermost of the many walls surrounding the Gray King's Keep. Nearing the end of the path, Snadwick is surprised by a voice speaking in her head, exclaiming at finding someone of "good heart" in such a wicked place. The voice turns out to be the telepathic communication of a lone flumph, a floating creature of the Underdark who feeds on the psychic powers of psionic creatures, in this case the duergar in their mighty city. Flumphs, however, are repelled by evil, and will cooperate with "good" creatures to defeat evil, even if it means losing their psionic food source. The lone flumph, who has grown up without a colony, is eager to help, and informs the party (through Snadwick) not only of the way forward, but also of the secrets it has overheard in its time feeding on the duergar.
The flumph gives Snadwick (and the rest of the party) major revelations:
The Gray King Gralkhar is in league with Trinilane, who is a type of fiend called a rakshasa. Trinilane can change shape and often appears as a tall, muscular human man with red hair, but his true form is a humanoid tiger; no matter what form he takes, his hands always appear to be on backwards. Trinilane, in turn, operates at the behest of none other than the Lich Queen herself, Gwydieth. The duergar, who despise all surface life, have consented to ally with the Lich Queen Gwydieth to unite the surface under her rule. An ancient, almost forgotten threat approaches from the cold between the stars -- foul, mind-devouring creatures in predatory ships shaped like nautiluses. The duergar still remember the last time the nautilus ships arrived in Quol', even if the soft surface races do not. The duergar once were slaves of the mind-devourers, and have kept alive the ancient hatred that once allowed them to break free of their clutches. By uniting his forces with those of the undead Gwydieth, Gralkhar hopes to defeat the nautilus ships once and for all -- and perhaps to remake the soft surface world into something harder, fiercer, crueler, and more to his liking.
Snadwick appears to be the only member of the party to appreciate the gravity of these revelations.
At the end of the secret path, the party emerges at a back gate in the innermost wall of the Gray King's Keep. There they fight two duergar spider-riders (who can turn their mounts and themselves invisible), as well as two duergar mind-masters, who use their psionic powers to create chaos among the adventurers. One of the mind-masters escapes, shrinking down to tiny size and running through a crack in the gate. The party employs their climbing kits to get over the wall, not knowing what awaits them.
Session 8: "Our Cat Just Punched Her to Death" (September 2)
Flashback session!
Before meeting the flumph and storming the gate, the party makes its way through the long-abandoned ruins of Borgol the Old, a once-mighty dwarf king who was overrun in ancient times by the duergar. The party has been joined by Sunrise After Storm, a middle-aged tabaxi airship-pirate who has turned over a new leaf and become a monk. Sunrise has been sent out by his monastery to track down an ancient item that had been stolen from them; clues suggest that it has made its way to the Gray King.
They encounter blood-sucking stirges, a pair of predatory gricks, and a deceptive room of statues, and must disturb the grave of the ancient king himself in order to locate a key. A magical alarm alerts a trio of duergar guards, led by Ghared, a spy. The duergar make no move to attack but refuse to budge; Ghared tells the party that only the worthy may meet with the Gray King, and no surface-dweller is worthy. Sunrise strikes first, punching Ghared to death, much to his own shock. The other duergar surrender after seeing their leader felled so quickly. They warn the group that a black dragon awaits them in the caverns ahead.
Soon enough, the party emerges on a ledge above a lake that stretches off into the darkness. A deep, rumbling voice, seeming to come from below them, warns them that they are in the realm of Nightscale. Snadwick (who speaks Draconic) recognizes that the voice comes from a young female black dragon. Nightscale says the party may live if they surrender their armor, their arms, and their treasure to her, and throw them all into the lake. "My arms?" shouts the literal-minded monk, in confusion. Snadwick stubbornly refuses, snapping at the dragon that they will do no such thing. Nightscale hisses angry insults and the "turtle," then flings herself out of the lake and into the air, breathing acid breath upon Snadwick, then bites and rakes her claws upon Dara.
A perilous fight ensues upon the ledge, but the party demonstrates a great deal of teamwork, working together to stun the dragon and keep her close to the ledge, within striking distance. Vaelin jumps upon her back and bashes the back of her head with his shield, while Sunrise stuns her with precise strikes to manipulate the dragon's ki. Wounded and alarmingly near death, Nightscale surrenders, telling the party they may have all of her treasure so long as they let her escape. She flies off, escaping, while the party makes their way to her hoard on an island in the middle of the lake.
There they find much gold and silver, as well as:
a wand of magic missles
a +2 greataxe bearing the smith-mark of Borgol the Old himself
a +1 shield
a potion of healing
a potion of flying
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