Session 4: The Cypherwights Report

General Summary

When we joined our group, they had just begun to engage the dreaded cypherwight, an undead creature formed from an ancient corpose fused with tek. It had already killed and raised several of the kidnapped villagers as zombies in its service.   The group fought the wight and it's undead servants, facing several of the zombies as the wight struck with arrows from afar. It closed after the group had slaine it's thralls. With great effort the group killed the seemingly indestructible creature, only to find two more arriving just behind it. Maul-Moire channeled his faith to turn the creatures, driving one off, but not the other.   This one was felled by someone different, however. One of the townmembers came, but something was different. This one bore a horn just like the goblins. It used it's copper breath on the wight, which somehow killed it instantly. The horned man faced the group, his eyes drooped in a strange, half-sleep.   "The balance has changed," he said. "Safeguard wishes to speak with you. You rejected its first offer, so now it offers another. I will be his voice. Come, there is little time."   Understandibly, the group had many questions and was skeptical of the being the goblins who had only recently attacked Caracara. Ultimately they agreed to follow, however, once the turned villager, a former merchant named Argyle, said that a great catastrophe was imminent and that there was no one left but the group who could help.   They found Safeguard in a great hall, surrounded by the bodies of the sleepwalker goblins and cypherwights. A great battle had just occurred, and only a few of the horned goblins remained. One defender of note, a hobgoblin who wielded a silvered glave, looked to have given his life to defend a floating black sphere covered in continually appearing and dissolving copper cracks.   This spere was Safeguard. Speaking through Argyle it explained that it existed to keep sealed something it referred to as the Singing Monolith. It said it had done this for a very, very long time. In recent eons, however, the song of the monolith, the "Song of Opening" had increasingly grown in strength, while its own power had diminished. Soon it's song would break the seal, and the monolith would rise from it's hidden vault.   What that meant, exactly, as well as what that entailed, Safeguard did not elaborate on. Perhaps it did not know. It only said definitively that it existed to maintain the seal, and that drove each and every one of its actions.   It said that when the balance between it and the monolit first became disrupted, that it worked with a group of priests (ostensibly the priests who first built the ruined monastery above) to try and stop it. It helped them develop a plan to slip into the complex that housed and constrained the monolith and use the machinery there to further bind it by unseating it partially from time itself. That seemed to forestall the monolith's rise by over a millennium or so, but now that machinery has broken down, and the complex is intermittently returning.   It was in these short phases that Urulay slipped through into the complex herself. The goblins were tricked by her into believing she, like the priests, would help stop the monolith. She, in actually, is seeking to do the opposite. It is with the tek she found in the complex that she has begun creating the cypherwights, and believes she can extract even more power by unleashing the monolith in full.   When asked about the kidnapped villagers, Safeguard said there were some who resisted his attempts to take root in them as he did the goblins (though not all, of course, as in the case of Argyle). Most of those were still held, or had been found and converted into undead slaves by the wights.   There was one exception, however. One woman managed to converse with Safeguard as the group did, though it was through the goblins. Before the wights attacked she was the one who convinced Safeguard to try and recruit the party to fight Urulay, and then had the now deceased hobgoblin leader help her slip into the complex.   She said her name was Rodoria, and asked Safeguard to impart to Raelyn specifically that this superseded everything else, and that she would know what that meant.   These things Safeguard revealed to the group, and in requesting their help offered whatever the goblins had acquired to aid their quest to stop Urulay (see below).   After releasing the kidnapped townspeople and sending them on back to town, the group gathered together their gear, took the key to allow them to pass through the seal, and made their way to the gate. Argyle led them there, but when they reached their destination they were attacked again by the wights. Argyle moved to turn them, but had almost all of his life drained away from them before he could. Maul Moir turned them, however, sending them running so the group could flee through the seal and into the complex.   What they found there was strange beyond reason. A tunnel, 50 feet wide made of white metal, lit with a violet light. It ran north to south as far as they could see, with small side tunnels branching off down to the south. Feeling a soft vibration in their feet, they remembered Safeguard's warning "Beware the traveler. He comes every 1500 beats, though its decay may have changed this."   The group ducked into a tunnel just in time to see a massive form shoot down the tunnel at an incredible speed, just missing colliding with them.   As the session ended, they found the tunnel ended in a perfectly square room, where a creature lay, seemingly in wait for them. It had a large feline body, and a swirling ball of energy where it's head should have been.   "Ah," said a voice that terminated from the swirling energy. "I see Safeguard has sent a new group of fools to needlessly die for it."

Rewards Granted

Safeguard Lair
• 220 GP
• Three gems worth 50 GP a piece.
• A cup worth 75 GP.
• Boots of Levitation
• A Silver Glaive (Left in the room with the gate)
• 2 Detonation (Lighting) cyphers
• 1 Detonation, Greater (Daggers) cypher
• 1 Endless Coil relic
• 2 Potions of Healing
• 1 Ray Emitter cypher
• 1 Shocker cypher (used)

Missions/Quests Completed

Things Learned:

• Urulay has gained access to an ancients' complex sealed away by powerful magic.
  • She has discovered an object called the Singing Monolith, with which she is attempting to attain some kind of power.
  • She has found a way of animating the dead using cyphers.
• Safeguard created the Sleepwalkers, and seeks to stop the activation of the Singing Monolith.
• It's existence seems to be dedicated solely to this goal.
• The Singing Monolith seems to be on a path to breaking free from its seal on its own. Urulay appears to be trying to hasten this process.