Time: 9/18/22 - 9/25/22, active 9/26/22
PCs: Blair, Bigtoe, Bralen, Benjamin
Hench: Adyan, Astartes
Team B was back in action, chasing down a treasure map quest from Teutch the Alchemist to retrieve a crown, throne, and high level magic scroll from the king of the mongrelmen 15 miles under the Oerth’s surface. The party headed out to find the canyon in the middle of a large icy tundra situation. They had a solid map and directions to the location thanks to Teutch’s defeat of the Ice Salamanders that had laired there previously.
The party ran across some Ogres that they were able to evade mostly due to the Ogres’ indifference in chasing them and otherwise had an uneventful travel into the canyon and down a wide series of switchbacks into a large cavern mouth that led even further down. They found a miraculously well-prepared camp site complete with carefully stacked firewood and comforting bioluminescent lichen that they rested at before completing the journey to the massive cavern of the mongrelmen.
The enormous natural cavern had many cave entrances all along the walls at different heights with no obvious stairs, ladders, or ramps to access them. The party did not investigate any of these, instead heading to the back of the cavern where the treasure map indicated the king of the mongrelmen’s palace would be.
A large bas-relief figure of a strangely dressed man wielding a pistol was carved to each side of the entrance to the king’s palace, two tall bronze doors that were dark green from verdigris. They investigated the doors and pushed one open, made difficult by time and squealing loudly. Blair tracked around the open door for activity and found nothing but when she passed the threshold she floated to the ceiling. Gravity appeared to have been reversed within the palace itself.
They followed a white and black checkered tile floor/ceiling to a room with a large, dry fountain and 3 other bronze doors. At the right hand door they found a small worship room, complete with a shrine devoted to the same subject of the bas-relief carvings outside, a dashing man with a pistol. There were some small gemstones in the offering bowl and after careful examination they found a hidden compartment with even more valuable treasure.
Across the fountain room another door led down a short hallway, where they found an ancient storage room, its contents decayed to dust, and a long hallway of cells. They encountered a band of orcs that were camping here and dispatched them fairly easily once they employed some military oil into the confined space. They were forced to escape the narrow area and the smoke from the fire and chose to go forward rather than back.
In the next room was another door leading further into the palace and a break in the wall leading into a natural cavern beyond. They surmised that the orcs had probably come in this way since the main entrance had seemed to be undisturbed. They took the door into a large room with a big pit in the center, rows of pews or benches around it, and a spiral staircase leading down. There was also another bronze door here that led to the rear entrance of the king of the mongrelmen’s throne room. They found the very large room well-lit by glass light bulbs and a large throne on a dais. Bigtoe inspected the throne and discovered that the king was still in it! An old and desiccated corpse still wearing his crown, tattered clothing, and a worn leather gunbelt with a pistol holstered in it.
Bigtoe immediately reached for the pistol, but the corpse sprang to life, attacking him with claws and a bite that trailed iridescent glowing patterns in their wake. Fortunately none of the deadly strikes landed before Bralen was able to cast a protection from evil spell, rendering the natural attacks of the king useless. But it turned out that he still had a pistol… so anyway he started blasting.
I ruled that whatever gunpowder-like substance that the rounds in the pistol used had been compromised with time, so for each shot there was a chance that it was a dry fire. Fortunately for the Wombat, the king only connected with two shots, which were still enough damage to nearly kill him. Meanwhile Blair, Benjamin, and the henchmen were stabbing away at his flanks, eventually just chopping him down. They got the crown from his head, a revolver, and a throne with a futuristic city skyline studded with gemstones over the head rest. But no scroll yet, which meant splitting the value of the items with Teutch. Unacceptable!
They decided to rest since Bigtoe was bleeding to death, so they fortified the two large bronze double doors leading into the throne room with spikes and a crowbar through the handles and slept. A few random encounters tried the doors to no avail, but one nearly broke through, saved only by the stout bronze door handles and the MVP of the session, the crowbar.
The party had to get the scroll to make the most profit from the haul, so they decided to keep searching, going down the spiral staircase and into some kind of lab or workshop area. They found a weird metal spiral that hummed with wires running off of it to some metal box on the wall. There were switches and purple crystals and they fiddled with it for a while turning lights off and on, Bigtoe excited about the implications of access to electricity and Bralen commenting on how this was “world changing” information. Blair totally didn’t steal a plastic handled screwdriver and they continued to search on.
The next room was a basement of sorts for the throne room where they could see the wiring for the lights. It had a study or library area with plastic patio furniture in it and a bunch of rotted books and things. Also some spare parts that the Wombat snatched up. While searching for secret doors Blair flipped over the patio table and found a number scratched into the bottom surface. They tried that number on a keypad found in the basement which opened a steel door. It revealed a gun rack with some spare ammo, a katana and wakizashi on their own rack, and a glass case filled with Edgar Rice Burroughs novels and a clearly magical scroll.
Bigtoe searched for traps and found none and after some discussion about how to handle retrieving the items the party just started grabbing stuff. The door slammed shut and gas started filling the room. There was a bit of panic but Benjamin, who had stayed outside, entered in the original code on the keypad backwards and the door opened and the party was saved.
They went back to the generator to try and take it and found that it sat on top of a large purple gemstone rising out of the ground, which was apparently a deal breaker so they put it back. They heard some loud berzerkers coming down the stairs so they laid in ambush and waited, but the barbarians went the other way and they were able to sneak up and past them all the way to the fountain room. They got the drop on some goblins that were coming in from a different hallway and Blair was able to secure the door before the goblins could bust in and attack.
The rest of the trip back was surprisingly uneventful and they were able to cash in on a pretty solid payout from The Purple Fever Dream.
Musings:
Bigtoe’s been asking about gunpowder for a while, and now that it’s been introduced I’ve got to explain how it’s gonna work mechanically. There is precedent in our world with the Brotherhood invasion in the Pirates game having cannons and such. I suspect they enslaved dwarves and forced them to produce the gunpowder for the cannons. I’ll have to make a decision on which rules to use from Guns of War in regards to gunpowder. This is a fantasy world with fantasy implications to these things so whatever I rule, it’s not gonna be basic real world science.
Xp from Kills: 1083
Xp from Loot: 18515
Total XP: 19598
Cuts: 10
PC: 0% 3,920 5% 4,116 10% 4,312
Hench: 0% 1,960 5% 2,058 10% 2,156
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