Session 67 Report

General Summary

Moon Planter's Log

What a disaster this pyramid turned out to be. Upon seeing a black and orange Kirin, we had no time for introductions, because 3 massive golems had lasers pointed at her. The temperature in this place was already hot, and it kept rising. I jumped into position, and shouted to my Bannermanes how to best bring these machines down. Any damage we placed upon them seemed to have almost no effect. My instincts told me that this alarm had an off switch, and all we had to do was find it and turn it off. With a quickened surge of energy, I bolted through the golems, and tried to locate where we could stop a coming catastrophe. That's my foolishness really began to shine. Flying over a massive pit, Sarsaparilla and Tripple ran with me. We lured one of the golems away, and quick kicking from Tripple saw one of the golems falling into the pit below. I flew south, and saw the largest elemental I've ever seen in my life. Terror struck me. It was over 20 feet tall and shone like fire. I ran back through the large room and shouted at Sarsaparilla and Tripple to run. I flew into a different room thinking I could simply find a path, but ran into 4 more golems. They activated upon seeing me, and began charging up. In my frantic behavior, I rushed back toward the party and turned down another hallway. This one full of steam elementals. I feared my stupidity was going to cost my Bannermanes their lives. Sarsaparilla and Tripple joined me. The air elementals were quickly dispatched, and Tripple began unlocking the door. Swift shouted that we were in over our heads, and we needed to escape. I ran to rejoin them, and saw that a toxic gas had filled the room, but one of the golems had been destroyed, and another heavily damaged. Sarsaparilla caught up to us right as the giant elemental rounded the corner, and it was shaking the ground as it barreled toward us. Tripple stayed behind because he believed he could stop the destruction of this place. The Kirin and Ping Wing showed great courage. Even though these golems were immune to magic, the two of them worked in tandem to turn the tide in our favor. Providence smiled at us, as the golems and the elementals fought each other in the large pit room. The elemental crushed the ground, and two massive skeletons climbed from out of the pit to fight the golems. We had no sign of Tripple. I could only hope he was safe on his own. One by one, the golems began to fall. Ping Wing managed to call one of them to our aid, and it blocked the hallway preventing other golems from reaching us. I struck hard, but Swift Sail was deftly dancing between them all. Landing deep strikes with his rapier that cracked the golems' shells. When we had an opening, I shouted that we need to regroup with Tripple. I flew to the door where I had last seen him, but not before the few remaining golems broke away to follow me. If I couldn't reach Tripple, then I would stand my ground and make sure these machines couldn't either. A powerful spell from the Kirin caused the giant elemental to let out a great scream of pain. Whatever she had done, it hurt it. My fear was replaced with apprehension as I dared to think we could actually kill these creatures. Swift leapt from around the corner, and cut out the beast's heart. It crumpled to the ground. Seeing that display reminded me of when Mrs. Kaffe tore that dragon apart that had me petrified. I regained my confidence, and was determined to destroy the creatures. FOR TIMELESS GLORY! The clay golem in front of me ate the full force of my falchion. Every swing chopped deep into its armor, and cracked it deeper. With a final blow, I cleaved its head off, and watched as it fell to pieces. That's when I noticed Grot standing underneath it, biting into its ankle. I almost smiled when she said, "Heh! Grot stronger than she thought." I wasn't going to take her confidence away, as we needed everyone at peak performance. I rushed forward. One of the skeleton elementals remained. I struck hard as I flew into position, and tripped the creature. It's bones snapped, and Sarsaparilla finished it off. With the immediate threats finished, we ran to Tripple, and found him already working on shutting the alarms down. There were 6 nodes on the floor of a large forge. The Kirin is named Electra and said she was there to stop a melt down. Magma was rising through the grates in the floor, and the temperature continued to rise. I moved into an adjacent room, and found a bunch of levers and pressure valves. After a process of elimination, we managed to turn 5 of the 6 nodes green, with only one remaining red, and the alarms still blaring. A large wheel on the wall indicated there was a room that needed to be cleared before it was turned. Swift and I stayed at the wheel, with Wicker on look out. We waited for word from the rest of the group who went to find this room. They shouted that something had been found, and Tripple came to tell us not to touch the wheel. We went with him and saw a large room with tons of scrap in it. We decided to clear the room, and found some bits of treasure in it. Suddenly, the door closed on Grot, Electra, and I. The walls were moving in, and it became apparent that we were going to be crushed. Grot found a spot by the door where she could be safe from the walls. I attempted to crack a thick plane of glass covering cog wheels operating the hydraulic pistons, but couldn't break through. While I ran to hoist up two metal doors, Electra did some strange magic, and shot webbing into the gears from under the grates. It stopped the machine, but the doors were still not open for us. I held the doors in place just in case the webbing broke. Then I heard the glass break, and the cogs were destroyed by a black stone. The doors opened shortly after, and I heard shouting of Swift being poisoned. I ran to him, and saw him being healed by Wicker A golem had snuck up behind us, activated the machine. Everyone outside was fighting it, and thankfully stopped it in time. I don't know how it managed to sneak around us, but I'm confident that had anyone heard it, they would have called it out. These alarms are very loud after all. I turned some wheels to pour oil on the cogs, and slowed their rotation. Then I stabilized the electrical current from the nodes. With that done, the alarms turned off, and the melt down averted. Electra identified herself as a Bannermare from Swift's order, though she struggled with the salute as most new members do. She has a hatred for Buckback, but wasn't clear as to why. She's clearly keeping information from us, but she did save our lives. She's a Bannermare in good standing, for now. Swift insisted that we travel to Dakilai via the teleportation circle to sell our collected gear. We agreed, and went on a shopping spree to upgrade our gear, and place crafting orders with Wicker Wind, and Ping Wing. Seelah will be joining us for our adventure for now. Despite my foolishness, my Bannermanes showed tremendous courage and resourcefulness in securing this pyramid, and eliminating dangers. My faith in their abilities as sky rocketed. Now more than ever, I'm confident we can bring this monster Heat Fang down. Now to formulate a plan.

Swift's Log

As the hatch to the norther pyramid atop the ladder opened ahead of us, a soft, scaled face was there to greet us. A new kirin of all things! I shall call her Angel Scales. Ahead of everyone else, I paused to register what I was seeing while a line spun through my mind. I was about to speak it before three laser dots settled on the kirin’s panicked face. Rather than break the ice and let her get hurt, I erupted from the ladder well and like the hero I am, threw myself into the center of the room to gain their attention. The construct key we’d used in the previous pyramid was of no use here. These three golems were tough, hardly taking any damage and not being bothered by magic. The interior was exceptionally hot and the grate below us showed rising magma. Thinking there was an off-switch ahead of us, Moon Planter raced ahead with Sarsparilla and Triple Sevens leaving me with the rest of the party. I did my best to juggle and maintain the attention of the golems as the only martial. Wicker Wind supported, doing a good job keeping me healed as I took a beating. Angel Scales showed off some flashy magic fusion while Ping Wing pulled out a really useful spell by making a copy of the golems to fight on our side, but also flexed his annoyance by squawking his wizard propaganda at me. All seemed well at first, I flipped and bounced off the golems in a dazzling display, though the Golems didn’t get any easier to deal with, eventually grabbing me out of the air and forcing me down to the grate where it was almost hot enough to singe the clothes right off of me! I flailed in a panic as I realized just what was going on, breaking free and briefly checking—the feather was fine though. A close call, I should really be more careful in a place like this… Before long, I heard a variety of startling, loud noises and THUDS, crashing footsteps further down the pyramid behind some screams from Moon Planter who bounced left to right. Behind him at the very end of the room, I saw a giant, volcanic—giant! Shock ran up my spine, unnerved for a moment as it stepped towards us, but not before bringing two fossilized dinosaurs to life. I had to call out for Moon Planter, Sarsparilla, and Triple to pull back before we got killed. Still yet, 4 more golems joined the fight. Knowing the exit was right behind us was reassuring, but all of our Bannermanes were not yet accounted for. As the foes gathered, the golems began to fight with the dinosaurs. It was that combined with our party reuniting and an impressive showing of bravery from our casters that made me start to reweigh the scenario. With Ping Wing’s golem copy holding the front lines we were able to start widdling these things down! Moon Planter and I worked together on one, I kept its attention with twists and spins and leaps and stabs while Moon Planter hacked away at it, our teamwork leaving it crumbled in half and melted to the grate. We were able to push ahead into the next hallway, momentum quickly beginning to sway towards us. Angel Scales sent a powerful blast of electricity down the room that hit the volcanic beast and elicited a thunderous cry of pain. I could see it peek from around the corner and zero in on her before racing down the hallway over the golems and everything else in its path with devastating intent. It charged right towards the kirin ready to swing a gargantuan, volcanic fist at her. Recognizing the danger, and more importantly the glory ahead, I threw myself ahead without a second thought to intercept the volcanic beast’s fist. I caught him on my rapier and began using it’s momentum to lead it back and away from the kirin, and right on top of Ping Wing who didn’t have as much time to be snarky while dodging magma raining from above. He wasn’t a concern admittedly, the moment before me had my full attention as I recognized it as a chance to do something… spectacular. Saving Angel Scales wasn’t enough, I used the opportunity to thrust and lunge forward, stabbing through any cracks I could see and managing to pierce it’s body. It let out another deep, gurgling roar of pain as it’s heart was pulled back at the end of my rapier, and it crumbled before me in view of every single creature that was still standing. I capped off the moment by posing atop the head of the fallen beast while Ping Wing patted out some fire he’d caught. The heroic display radiated off of me like the magma off my sparkling fur, a beacon of hope and assurance to the rest of the party that I could see Moon Planter take in full. Out of the corner of my eyes I could see him ferociously slicing and slashing up the golem in front of him, finishing it off with mighty blows. The odds were fully in our favor now. One last dinosaur was all that remained, attempting to charge back towards Sarsparilla, but it wouldn’t get past me. I stood my ground atop the volcanic corpse and halted it’s advances, keeping it cornered with Ping Wing, Moon Planter, and Grot to finish the job. When all was said and done, I was admittedly winded. Adrenaline kept me going but there was a lot of air to try and catch. Moon Planter went right ahead mentioning Triple was in the other room and the rest of us followed suit. In the other room, we could see a number of lights, half of them red and half of them green as apparently Triple had been working to quell the imminent failure. Considering how things worked out in the end I’d say it was a masterful display. We also had an opportunity to properly meet the kirin. She introduced herself as Electra and shared her disdain for Buckback and her intent to save the pyramids. More allies are always welcome. The party worked together from there to flip levers and turn wheels to bumble our way through the failing power supply until there was one light left. We couldn’t figure out exactly what it was for, other than a single lever talking about emptying out a room. Looking a bit further down the hall we found a room that was full of trash and otherwise negligible treasures. Our attention off of the wheel almost proved a grave mistake as a final golem had appeared, this one I hadn’t accounted for and apparently had the wit about it to spin the wheel in the other room to lock Moon Planter, Angel Scales, and Grot inside of the room. The rest of us bolted to try and get it off of the wheel, fighting like hell to save our trapped teammates from imminent doom. Thankfully we were able to just in time, and we discovered the way to get the last light green which ultimately cooled down the entire pyramid. It wasn’t the way any of us expected this to go, and I wasn’t ready to get caught up in another mess, insisting we all leave and go through the portals to Dakalai to take a breather and sell everything we’d collected since the cave in Weldstone, which served for a decent payday. This kirin also revealed she was from my chapter, of all things! Another Wayfinder! Not one I personally recognized, but it has been a few years since I’ve been back… We didn’t find the crystal, and we’ll need to return to a hopefully more peaceful venture through that northern pyramid. Honestly if it weren’t for these hundreds of kobolds around the city I’d feel perfectly capable of facing Heatfang, I know we can take him, we just need to see what our options are from here…

Campaign

The Bannermanes

Protagonists