2023/06/21: Searching Solace Part 2 Report
General Summary
Knight, Buzz, Lillith, Union, Zaran, Ik-chuk, Tebriv Stealth device is 5x5x15 feet. Was leaking wild magic gas at one point. Party can't teleport with it. Party decided to transport it back to Castle Fallingstar via Buzz's super-portal so it could be analyzed and kept away from Necrosa. Knight and Zaran finally managed to find their way out of the phantom zone they'd been stuck in. They got caught up by the rest of the party and joined the effort to get the artifact out. Tall lanky gentleman in purple trenchcoat was spotted walking down stairs towards the group's path. The party continued forward, and he casually leaned against the stairs to wait for them. Bright blue skin, 8-9 feet tall. Swagger. Knight, wary of an ambush, activated amulet of spiritsense and life detection and the magic lantern of magic detection. No targets found, not even the blue man. He introduced himself as Estando. With a heavy accent, he stated his interest in the stealth device and offered lots of money in exchange. Zaran proposed cookie recipes instead, or at least to have this negotiation in whatever place Buzz and co. seemed so eager to move the device to. The members of the party who have been to Spelljammer recognized this man as an arcane, a species from offworld known for making and selling spelljammers. Negotiations between Zaran and Estando ensued, while the rest of the party made no attempt to slow down or join in. Estando tends to talk in third person, and he has a very strange stride. It's almost like his legs have no bones, or too many joints. Partway through the conversation, Estando mentioned that there were some bad men waiting up ahead and suggested the party take a detour. Knight's attempt to double check this via the sky gem proved fruitless, as the gem had to go so high to see past the spire, but they did get an impressive view of the spire as a whole. The party members skilled in pick pockets noticed that Estando was subtly pulling out some device and checking it from time to time. He had checked that just before suggesting the course change. Kal'vus kept a very close eye on him from then on. The party went with the suggestion, and soon found themselves in the blasted wastes outside the city without further troubles. Estando looked down at his device again, nodded in satisfaction, and stated that "We should have a few minutes. If you were going to arrange for transportation, now would be the time." Buzz opened a worldwalk portal, and the group stepped through to Leithien. As the party reached the other side, they immediately found themselves confronted by a group of elven bowmen. Buzz: "Princess, this is all you." Lillith: "I'm not a princess!" Buzz: "It's how you were introduced, so..." Lillith sighed and waved to the elves. While Buzz set to tearing down the portal, Lillith tried to get the elves to stand down. After they proved Lillith's identity via some ritual (and declined to check Knight and Buzz, who volunteered as a joke), the elves warned Estando, Ik-chuk, and Tebriv that if they wandered around in the woods on their own, they would be shot. Repeatedly. After a good bit of joking around, the party headed onward to a place where a friend of Buzz could put the artifact in containment. Oddly, Buzz's portal left behind the birdlike side pillars, which rapidly became overgrown and ruin-like. Normally the portal leaves nothing behind. No one involved knew why it did that, so it became yet another thing for the attending druid to investigate. Apparently there's been dimensional weirdness in Leithien lately, and this may be related. The party finally arrived at Castle Fallingstar. They were met at the gate by two members of the True Order, two big men in black armor. They introduced themselves as Semnon and Demnith. They were there to help the party get the artifact to containment. They offered to carry it, as the containment zone was heavily antimagic and the floating disc currently being used for transport wouldn't work. They then brought it through what appeared to be a solid wall, carried it into a laboratory/containment area, walked back out, and shut the door, which promptly vanished. It's in Orb's realm now. Lillith informed them that the Archmage of Leithien would probably be visiting. Orb probably wouldn't be happy, since she doesn't like people, but she'd hopefully tolerate it. The two men informed the party that Orb would be doing a quick safety check on the device. Lillith and Buzz then fulfilled their promise, saying that Estando was interested in scanning the device. It would have to wait until after the safety checks, but it would be allowed. The party was going to have to wait for a few hours, so they relocated to the Rook. (Estando had stopped checking his device; the last time he did it, he looked shocked, but now he seems more relaxed. Either there's nothing on the scan, or the entire scan is one big dot now. Castle Fallingstar is a fun place.) The waitresses are darksingers. Lady zoras, but with dreadlocks, with the dreadlocks being tubes. They seem to be in a good mood, talking and joking with the customers. A couple of godslayers. There's another member of the Order, with an iron mask over more than half of his face. Several somewhat short blackmoors. Somewhat lighter armor than usual, with some cloth between plates rather than full plate. They're young blackmoors. (They need room to grow.) There's a being in a cloak. There's a group of Alvidarians. You can tell them by the shining armor and glowing holy runes. There are actually two bars in the tavern. If the party has any magical business where they have to do a lot of spellcasting and talking, they should head to the upper level, while downstairs is for people wanting to have fun and hang out. If you're upstairs, you're less likely to be bothered by the pixies in the rafters. Buzz led Knight upstairs, where Buzz laid Knight out on a table and started measuring him for the technomagical prosthetic they had been quietly discussing. The only other group upstairs was a six-member adventuring party who were busy with their own business. Union, meanwhile, watched the chess game downstairs. Kal'vus offered sparring matches to passersby. The party also did some loot distribution. They decided that the demon-infused guns and the Amulet of Torn Souls were best handed off to the temple of Ranthael for destruction. Buzz and Lillith noticed that there was actually a paladin of Ranthael downstairs, and Lillith went to talk to her and her party. Tamrith Camris is one of the members? The paladin is 6'10", platinum blonde woman in full plate mail. Her name is Eicria, Fist of Ranthael. She cheerfully took a look at the items, and while she didn't have much to give in return for destroying the items, she offered an IOU from the Fist of Ranthael. Lillith agreed. They took the items outside, since Eicria suspected the evil amulet would probably explode when broken. She then smashed the guns to pieces with her bastard sword, Cala-Enzundan. +8 holy bastard sword that gives off a wide radius of holy light. Slashing, (fire?,) holy, blunt. The amulet shattered just as easily, releasing a cloud of colorful motes that seemed to be souls. The paladins and Lillith said a prayer. The motes gradually flickered and faded out. Lillith received Eicria's business card and an official IOU. The next encounter was the Archmage of Leithien and her minder arriving. Minder is a man named Ibune (sp?). The archmage is very high intelligence, low wisdom. Very nice lady, but a bit of a ditz. She's currently wearing a big, fluffy robe and not much else. Name is Sweet. She doesn't make much small talk, mostly observing the fairies while Ibune orders food. A dark, hooded figure entered the tavern and confidently approached the party's table. He's a friend of Lillith who was last seen on her grandfather's porch. He's a mercenary. (Duke?) He informed the party that Orb had inspected the device. It's off and safe, ready for a closer look. It's been returned to pristine shape; it smashed itself a bit shorter in the landing from the top of the spire. The party followed the mercenary down into the chambers below the castle, ending in the presence of Orb, Azhar, and at least one member of the Order of Oblivion. The device was there along with plenty of inspection gear. It looks like Necrosa's skill with stealth technology has improved over the years. This device apparently involves no illusion or divination whatsoever. Depending on what settings you use, it can apparently sort of overwrite reality near it so things don't exist. The party shared the backstory and the clues from Solace with the present company. Buzz had the very worrying thought that Necrosa might be working on a new edition of godslayers, focusing on inner planar energies and inspiration rather than outer planar like the last batch. This artifact was likely developed by multiple archmages working in concert over the course of years, specifically to make a perfect stealth system. It's going to take a lot of work to overcome it or find flaws. This device seems to be designed to work on the prime plane(s), though its effects also bleed over to the border planes. Using the device on the border planes directly would likely be far less effective. Various ideas were proposed for ways to get around it. Soul magic might be a way. Fortunately, anyone inside one of the displaced zones is locked out of normal reality, so it's not good for stealthy surveillance. Good for avoiding big blast effects, though. And then, after poking around while everyone was talking, Sweet said "Got it" and stood up with a magnifying glass that she'd put together with things from her pocket and a unicorn rune. Her only explanation was that the spirits of the land probably remember, so you just need to ask them. And you can ask them by looking through this. A bewildered Orb started trying to figure out how Sweet managed that. Estando got to do his scan of the device, but Orb wasn't willing to give up the device itself. She was iffy on even letting him have the scan, "But since there's apparently such an easy way around it!..." Estando gave the party 78,000 gold in exchange. He offered another 12,000 for a scan of the magnifying glass, but the party declined. Best to keep the tech advantage there, even if he was aware of the principle behind it now. The party split up to head for various homes, where they could catch up on things, relax, rest for the night, rememorize spells, and so forth. They would regroup the morning of the day after next. In the meantime, Lillith rememorized all her spells and Kal'vus got a sparring match with an elven ranger. Kal'vus won handily, and the ranger cheerfully offered a rematch. He felt he could learn a lot from the monk. Kal'vus happily agreed. Before a third match, Kal'vus asked the elf his name. Eriad Darkarrow. Kal'vus lost the third match, Eriad threw everything into this one, and found himself a real fight. They did plenty of additional rounds, Kal'vus winning a bit more than he lost. By the end, they were good friends. Kal'vus got to keep the wooden dueling sword. When the group came back together, Sweet and Ibune were there as well. Ibune handed Lillith an official military missive from the crown. It is a request that the party check out a few things: Sweet has detected seven hidden facilities in the mountains of Leithien, cloaked by similar technology to the stealth field artifact. Lillith offered to use magic to swap Ik-chuk's class from "scavenger" to a random heroic class. Ik-chuk happily agreed. ("Ik-chuk like being hero!") He's now an eighth-level ???.
Rewards Granted
2 xp
Missions/Quests Completed
Retrieve the experimental stealth device from Solace, investigate the device.
Character(s) interacted with
Tebriv, Estando, Ik-Chuk , Sweet, Ibune, Orb, Semnon, Demnith, Eicria
