CM: C10E4 - Blastoff! Conclusion Report

General Summary

With Toby De Term'nd having commanded Stonky to abort the takeoff, the remainder of the party began to follow him to whereever he was going. However, no sooner had they all gained the hallway than Jayce found he was unable to successfully command the mad Gnome a second time. When the magical command wore off, Stonky turned to face the group, laughed, and stated, "When the countdown finishes...WHOOOSH!" He accentuated his words with an arm motion resembling a child using their hand to represent a bird flying through the air. As he did so, a ball of flame began to appear in his hand. Recognizing that this couldn't be good, Toby quickly counterspelled the fireball. Stonky looked at Toby with hatred and then began to run away down the hall. After recomposing himself, Jayce tried once again to magically influence Stonky. Using a powerful suggestion spell, he was able to force stonky to do everything he could to abort the launch for the next 8 hours. Now our heroes simply had to follow Stonky all the way up to the top of the tower where he quickly moved to a lever, consulted a piece of paper he pulled from his robes, and muttered, "Abort. Coop. Abort." before moving the lever into a different position. As it slid into place, Stonky shook his head and looked down at his hand and the lever and said, "What did you make me do?!" Stonky immediately moved to return the lever to its previous position, but both Jayce and Lyra moved to stop him. Jayce summoning his spirit guardians to harry the gnome, and Lyra dropping a radiant moonbeam on top of him. Bardak used his mage hand to snatch the slip of paper from Stonky's hand so that Bardak would know what position to move the lever to in order to abort the launch. Stonky defiantly moved the lever back and then moved out of the moonbeam and closing the distance to Lyra with angry intent. The cult leader was outmatched, however, and quickly fell to a killing blow from Jayce's spiritual weapon. Toby quickly moved to return the lever to the Coop position, however, there was an unseen glyph of warding on the ruby atop the lever and as soon as he touched the lever the room filled with electricity and the whole party was hit by magical lightning strikes. Toby was still able to abort the launch and Jayce healed everyone quickly before they waited for the countdown to finish. When it did they could hear the welcome silence as the rockets disengaged and powerd down. Toby took a close look at the telescope and then they all took defensive positions and waited for the cavalry to arrive. An hour or so later, the Avowed arrived and took the remaining Livestock members into custody. Before leaving, Bardak went back down to the basement and found the last skitterwidget and used his newfound ring to control it. He also found two miniature versions of the skitterwidgets, kiddywidgets, that he could not control with the ring but was able to convince to come live him. After dropping the constructs off at the mansion, the party met with the First Reader to debrief and Toby pleaded the case that the Planeswalkers would very much like to have access to the tower so they could study the telescope (and the rockets). Bookwyrm remained firm in the stance that the tower would need to remain off limits and sealed for the safety of all, but agreed to have the custodians dismantle the telescope and relocate it to a location of Lyra's choosing as a thank you for the continued aid that the Planewalkers have provided to Candlekeep. Over the course of the next month, Jayce tried to research rocketry, but found only a few references to the gnomes of Mount Hotenow, which he learned had exploded violently a number of years back (taking the gnomes and much of the city of Neverwinter with it. Toby spent his time laying the groundwork for finding a suitable home for the telescope. Bardak spent the month learning to care for his skitterwidgets, and discovered to his surprise that they mature and procreate at an alarming rate...

Rewards Granted

Bardak acquired Stonky's Ring, and also adopted the sole remaining skitterwidget and two kiddywidgets. First Reader Bookwyrm agreed to gift the telescope from the top of The Barn Door to Lyra. He will have the custodians dismantle, relocate, and rebuild it as part of their penance for falling into Stonky's crazy scheme.