2024/02/14: The Formian War Part 11 Report
General Summary
Knight, Kit, Malakai, Starlight Knight cut the path for the party back into dreams. This time, the dream was a roiling, shadowy realm of disconcerting colors. It felt like a smog-filled cityscape, cars passing by just out of sight. There was no immediate sign of danger, but the place was dark, the architecture was brutalist, and there were no familiar signs to follow. The party illuminated their area (thanks to Kit and then Starlight) and started following the wavering directions of Knight's compass. Along the way, attempting to take advantage of the apparently mutable dream, Knight looked in a window he imagined would be present on an upcoming building. On the other side was a horrid-looking butcher shop, but the party got lucky: The shop's address (a number in the 220s) was visible inside. This gave Kit a reference point for his own navigation, and the party began making more confident progress with the combined efforts of their two navigators. Partway to the suspected location of the fortress, the party heard the sound of a slow, heavy cart, and Kit led the group into cover. The cart rolled slowly by at the command of an unfamiliar driver, the vehicle filled with clean and glowing bones and pulled by no horses. The cart scrambled the dream as it passed, ruining the party's existing attempts at navigation. The party reconvened once the cart had passed. This time they decided to be more aggressive with their dream-shaping. Knight decided that if he went around the corner, he would be there on the map... The party found themselves next to an imposing prison building. A ladder led up the side of the building and a grate-covered sewer entrance led below the streets. Kit stealthily inspected the roof, where he found a hulking shadowy figure, apparently some sort of guard. Kit retreated to inform the rest of the party. They considered the sewer entrance, but they chose to bypass it in favor of following the directions of Knight's compass, which they'd triangulated to a point a block or two away. At that point, they found a flickering blue-white flame in a glass dish on a post. Whispering, possibly spellcasting chanting, emanated from around it. The party's wary approach revealed no signs of danger or hostility beyond an observation that wisps of smoke or spiritstuff were being continuously drawn into the light from the surrounding dream. Malakai was the one to finally touch the post. Space warped and spaghettified, and he found himself sucked into a room full of weird undead and Egyptian chanting. A mummy appeared nose-to-nose with him out of the darkness, said "You do not belong here," and pushed him right back out. Outside, while Kit looked Malakai over for ill effects, Malakai and Starlight noticed bits of Knight seemed to be getting drawn towards the light. After they alerted him and he dashed away, he checked himself over. While none of his souls or inventory had been taken, the parts of him that had been closest to the lantern were tender in a way that would have been reminiscent of a sunburn if he knew what those felt like. He declared that he, at least, was getting no closer to that thing. The party ultimately decided that whatever this lantern was, it wasn't currently their problem. They abandoned it and went back to check the sewer entrance. With effort, and despite the clear resistance of the dream realm itself (which was practically giving "out of bounds" warnings), Knight was able to tear the grate out. In the jagged hole below, there was a ladder, spots of glowing green goop, and the sound of snuffling. Starlight, Knight, and Malakai recognized that the snuffling sounded pained, and almost like crying. Knight looked around at the group, looked down, and hopped in. There was a brief space-warp as the scale of things changed. Knight's reflexes meant he still managed to catch the ladder. He called up to the others that they should watch their step, but they heard nothing: From their perspective, Knight had vanished completely the moment he dropped into the hole. On Knight's end, the ladder went down 80 feet into a surprisingly large cavern. The crying was coming from deeper in the cavern. After a few moments of consideration, Kit hopped in after Knight. Like Knight, he succeeded on the lunge to stay holding the ladder as the scale of his surroundings changed. Starlight, who stepped in after him, did not. Fortunately, the teammates who preceded her have good reflexes: Knight was able to stretch and grab her out of the air before she finished her own magic countermeasure to falling, then swing her down onto the ladder below him. The party gathered in the cavern at the bottom of the ladder. There were passages leading away, but the crying continued from a half-visible location farther down the main cavern. As the party approached, they realized that the crying was coming from inside what seemed to be a cage of warped space, and the cage was surrounded by a trio of large, semihumanoid beetles that were prodding at the contents of the cage with knives. The beetles turned to confront Knight as he led the way towards them. They brandished their knives in a gang-like fashion, clearly suggesting the party go elsewhere. Knight and Malakai, after brief consideration, responded with intimidation of their own, and they were much better at it. The had to step around a puddle of terrified beetle excrement once they were done. Kit went to check the locks on the cage, and ended up having to give up and hand it over to Malakai and his hammer. No need to worry about locks if you break the whole cage. Inside the semi-existent space cage was a small woman with large ears. Starlight gave her a tunic to replace her tattered, minimal clothes. The woman's name is Kaditza Kazool. She was, apparently, down here "getting lost". Starlight subtly identified her as a wererat dream walker. She decided not to tell Kit. (He has issues with rats.) In gratitude for her rescue, Kaditza offered to help the team with navigation. She pointed the group down a passage to a red rope leading up into a hole between two gaps in reality. Climbing it brought the adventurers up out of a well inside a wine cellar. Kaditza casually offered the party a pilfered bottle of wine. Outside the door, according to the party's guide, was a room full of zombies walking in circles of pain. In the real world, it was much the same, but with golems instead, along with two dwarves, one silver-armored, one gold-armored, both apparently with "pins" in their faces. In the middle of the room, in a hole, was an imprisoned derro, likely with the fourth key. The party made their plan. Knight would cut a hole in the middle of the room through which Kaditza would pickpocket the key off the derro. To do that they'd need to clear the dream room of zombies. Starlight charged up a couple of light bursts while Knight readied to hold the door. Starlight's blasts weakened them, Knight parried them, the group all killed them. The pickpocket attempt went very smoothly, even if it took some disgusting ripping from poor Kaditza's end. She said she felt like the poor dwarves were watching her in both threat and desperation as the group left. With all keys acquired, the party started making their way to the big boss's lair. Kaditza led them to a big skyscraper and promptly started climbing, and the others followed in their own ways. They stopped at a balcony outside a window. Kaditza told them the guy they were looking for was probably just inside. She bid everyone farewell, they all exchanged contact information, and then Kaditza turned into a rainbow-colored giant rat and dove through a hole in space. Kit's instinctive lunge didn't manage to reach her before she was gone. Carrying on, the party got inside without incident. They found a device to put the keys in, then had to go through a number of other security measures. One of the measures was the need for a palm scan by a living derro, which made the little girl derro surprisingly convenient. (Apparently she'd made herself permanently incorporeal and may also have been dead, but the party found her and rescued her and maybe brought her back to life.) On the other side of the defenses was the master computer and the final battle. It was, apparently, going to be rather reminiscent of Tron.
Rewards Granted
3 xp Kaditza Kazool's contact information
Missions/Quests Completed
Find all four keys to the derro lich's phylactery.
Character(s) interacted with
Created Content
Related Reports
2024/01/31: The Formian War Part 10 Report
Notes
Malakai's hammer does all damage types at once. Kit's bard college is in Radaghast. It's about 10 miles up (i.e., on the surface) and about 700 miles west from where the party was in Gertaglebrache. Kaditza lives in the Underdark outside of any major settlement, likely as part of an encampment of wererats. She says she falls into holes into the dream world regularly. Fortunately, she's also very good at navigating those dreams. She claims that training isn't likely to help her much: Her abilities seem to work better when she "goes with the flow" rather than trying to focus or force something.
