Session 27 - The Foundry of the Molten Gaze - Zellandria's Notes

General Summary

CONTINUATION OF THE IN PERSON GAME From the info provided by the giants we need to find that stream and continue.
Hettie shares half her breakfast with the horses
Forge torments Zell into maybe trying to pull the cart but she doesn’t take the bait
Tenebrae and Mr Butterscotch are hooked up to the cart instead
Verusa shifts into a giant crystalline dog, ruby red and glistening.
Forge and Hettie walk beside the cart
So anyway where the fuck are we going?
Verusa scouts back and tries to navigate us along through the winding riverbed
IT’s getting pretty damn hot as we continue.
Several hours pass and the sun starts to set everyone who is walking - ie everyone except Zell are starting to get fatigued.
...I don’t know why no one wanted to ride the cart, it’s only mostly burned.
Con saves for everyone for exhaustion.
Hettie fails, I think everyone else passes that one which is ok
Verusa spots a gentle hill with a flat top and a small shaded outcropping that would provide cover
Forge dishes out some more rations. Oh boy they were a little singed in the cart fire but I guess they don’t taste any worse at least?
The temperature begins to drop over night going from mid 30s to about 5 degrees.
Elenora and Forge keep watch
Perception checks!
12
13
It’s a crystal clear night and three of the moons are out.
No threats are spotted which is nice.
No more weird doors or anything appear for Elenora.
That’s good?
The next morning Hettie still shares a portion of her rations with the horses
Without the riverbed to follow it becomes a bit more difficult and Verusa tries to navigate the now more desert terrain.
Survival check.. 5?
I think we’ve been walking in circles.. Hm.
Welp, if the ruby dog says we go this way then we go this way
Let’s just keep going west..
Having a break for lunch Verusa keeps an eye on the direction of the sun and subtly directs us further west as we’d been heading too far northward.
Diiroehn lifts Hettie up onto the cart as he notices she’s been walking mechanically beside the horses the whole morning
Hettie: I know I shouldn’t be doing this, I’m just going to let everyone down.
Diiroehn: Others are counting on you, your magic is unpredictable
Zell: Was that like the first burning wreckage you’ve been pulled from?
Hettie: What? Does that happen a lot?
Diiroehn is like rude, Zell, we’re having a private conversation
Fuck you man, you’re right there on the cart with me, there’s no little divider window to pull up or whatever to ignore her.
Diiroehn: Anyway just be mindful next time. You responded under pressure and it wasn’t ideal but we’re all alive..
Hettie: Except the horses.
Diiroehn: That’s ok. Things will improve as you learn.
Verusa dashes back to the cart from where she’d been scouting ahead and alerts us that she’s found water ahead
Or at least can smell water? Salt water?
The ocean?
Well fuck how off course are we?
We direct the cart north for a few more hours and come to an area full of more sand dunes
A river winds through it and it seems to be a large salt flat and off towards the sea
Approaching from the dunes we can see a large stone fist punching out of the sand.
Hm.
Smaller scale than the statue in the harbour but still a big ass hand
25 driving check, woo!
Forge tries to be quieter than the cart as we make a slow approach towards the glass topped building beside the giant stone fist.
It looks like it used to be holding something something narrow
Elenora takes out her sketchbook and begins to draw the hand and long glass topped building
So sitting in the back of the cart, Diiroehn gives Hettie a pep talk and Zell pointedly ignores them but is listening to EVERYTHING.
Dii: I was a very different man not long ago. I was stronger, smarter..
Hettie: Did you get sick?
Dii: No.. I was attacked. Verusa passes Zell a small pouch of coins cause she lost that bet.
Dii: With everything I lost, I gained other things. It was hard but change had to be embraced. Giving up on that is like abandoning a part of yourself that cannot be replaced. I forget things now.. Feats of strength aren’t my forte anymore. But I will never be surprised again. I will always be prepared.
Hettie pats his shoulder.
Dii: This is not for sympathy. You need to know your strengths and focus on them.
Hettie: I’m no good to everyone if I give up, I guess, and I won’t find my sister that way..
She promises herself silently that she’s going to learn control.
A burden almost lifts from her mind.
Diiroehn functionally casts Ceremony - coming of age.
For the next 24 hours Hettie can add an extra d4 to all ability checks.
We stop the cart outside the building and begin to set up camp.
Elenora scouts around the outside and discovers there’s a dock that seems to transport things to the ocean?
The building looks very buried.
VERY buried.
The top half seems to have been a greenhouse or something?
The glass has been fairly badly scattered.
Another side has a large bay window that’s been cracked and worn by sand and wind over time.
Elenora returns to the campsite and shares her findings and sketches of the building.
In the morning Verusa hands out some delicious good berries
LET’S GO INSIDE THIS CRAZY THING
Headin in via broken window at Elenora’s direction
There’s a large cracked door across the way and a staircase to the right.
An immense 20ft long giant skeleton bleached and crumbling on the floor.
Elenora and Diiroehn come in and begin looking for traps or disturbances
Verusa and Zell head over to the skeleton to have a look at that big old thing.
Elenora spots a dark stain on the ground that seems to be rot and a very large footprint.
Two of them in a direction off to the left.
No footprints coming back in this direction..
Forge starts casting detect magic as he and Hettie walk into the room
Verusa and Zell try to closer at the bones but can’t determine what killed it, potentially natural causes?
Hettie notices a huge tablet with giant writing in the stone
Hettie: Does anyone speak Giant?
Dii: I mean, do we need to? It’ll probably say something about Adaxus.
Zell: Probably something about how great he is and how big his dick is.
Verusa: It says exactly that.
Elenora squints at it and translates the writing properly:
With the local rainforest destroyed after activating the skybreaker there is a delay in food supplies during the reforestation effort.
There’s a few other signs around the room
“FOUNDRY LINE”
Another reads
“SUPPLIES”
And leading down the stairs to a doorway-
“FINISHED GOODS”
Beneath one of them the sign has graffiti in elven on it
“Vedalia is coming. We are not yours.”
Neat.
Diiroehn suggests that they probably keep the dragonshard glass down the stairs in the area marked Finished Goods
He heads down the stairs and peers in through the ajar door.
The rest of the stairs are filled with sand so I guess we can’t go down further.
There’s a long room through there that seems to have a sandstorm kicked up
Zell looks into the supply room where the giant footprints were heading into
It looks like the one that the Rusheme giants were carrying around, the lower half of the sun beam statue?
The rest of the room has supply chests and stone slates with markings and pictures.
They are written in both giant and elvish
Oh hey! I can read elvish!
They seem to be instructions for a process?
Machinery instructions for mixing, sorting, adding chemicals and things..
Zell calls out to Verusa that there’s instructions here for making dragonshards
Verusa: Yeah mhm cool ok, one second
She looks through the door into the main chamber
STEVE DEPLOYS THE BATTLE MAP.
Oh no.
Verusa sees a massive room dominated by a series of brass rollers that make a massive lane down the centre.
Two large tanks in the middle and some large paddle fans.
There’s a lot of pillars and maybe some tanks that held water and at the end the production line seems to drop into a large glass container.
There are walkways around it but they seem to have fallen down in some areas with the passage of time.
There are ladders still hanging on but quite rusted.
At the back of the room is a complete large giant statue, like one of the ones that shoots lasers.
Verusa pops back inside and comes to look at the signs that Zell pointed out
The two of them open the crates in the room
Some have stale water and old oil
Another has a series of powders in bright colours
The red one smells like cinnamon.
She touches it and then licks her finger
Oh no
It’s not poison at least?
Blue reeks of rot
The green one smells like sulphur
White has a scent of iron or blood?
Hettie comes over and gleefully pours over the crates of powders
She peers at them and touches each one and carefully takes notes into her chemistry book.
Arcana check of 17
She doesn’t know what they are!
This is thrilling for Hettie and she takes samples from each one.
Forge’s detect magic pings through the door into the factory area
This looks hecking neat.
Let’s go in!
Veins of magic spread out from the lever that starts the foundry line and down through the components of the machine.
The walkway to the left has signs plastered along it
“Respect the process, respect the Sul’at, timing is crucial, wastage will be reported.”
Forge wants to walk down at sand level and investigate if the structure is still sound
Elenora sends Mr Watson to walk down
HE WALK.
His little ghost feeties slip a little on the rollers
Awww
Forge heads inside and comes down the staircase
Verusa follows behind him just in case he sinks into the sand
Forge yanks the door open and the wall of sand floods in to about waist height.
Verusa lightly walks behind him and looks around the area
She notices a human sized skeleton hand embedded in the sand
She dusts the sand away and finds the rest of the body standing upright.
Verusa: Hey big guy, check this out, it’s weird how the body is buried…
Forge squints at the skeleton and then uses his divine sense.
SOMETHING LIKE 300 FRIGGING UNDEAD UNDER THE SAND BENEATH THEM.
Cool ok awesome COOL.
Yo kids we need to get off the sand now.
Ok?
Ok.
Forge and Verusa hustle the fuck back to the upper level.
Diiroehn also pings sense undead and hooboy they’re around
I think the term was “a legion of” undead.
A LEGION WORTH.
So maybe there’s a spell on them that wakes them up when we turn the lever?
What about a necromancer or something?
Fuuuuuuuuck
I do not like these ideas at all.
So let’s do some things or something
So the steps we had:
1. Dispensing materials and crushing materials
2. Mixing materials and adding additives
3. Adding heat
4. Acid bath
5. Cooling
Let’s do a dry run without materials first!
So Hettie can make fire
There’s a tank of small dragonshard offcuts that need to be ground up and crushed
Forge makes his way down to the far end
Everyone is convinced that he’s going to fall off to Zell makes her way down towards him to provide support.
Elenora sets up ready to add the additive powders and Verusa sets in to monitor the first station.
A hum of energy in the air..
Everything pulses bright with detect magic.
The statue at the end swivels and looks straight down the line.
A flash of light passes over Dii’s head.
The rollers one by one begin to turn and rotate slowly
Forge sees next to him that the mouth of the statue begins to move
A booming voice rings out.
Production has begun. First batch will be completed in 60 seconds. Production is 172391923719231 minutes behind. Order to be complete today.
So we’re late… but not toooooooo late..
Looking down the sand starts to shift and move..
ROLL INITIATIVE
Hettie: 16 Mummified:16 Forge: 15 Diiroehn: 15 Elenora: 15 Zell: 14 Verusa: 6
Oh hey a bunch of undead.
Almost a legion worth.
Neat.
Disco balls descend.
Oh hey there’s a dude with fine clothes kind of mummified.
He has crystal embedded into his arms and face?
Neat.
Hettie fires three bolts of scorching ray towards the mummified skele
One hits and burns across it’s dried clothes
It moves and another mummified dude with a whip clambers up the ladder behind Elenora
She moves up and stabs old mate
Diiroehn jumps down and starts stabbing at some little skeles
Verusa moves up to the skeles that have reached her platform and she steps up and slams her hands together
A massive crack of thunder emits from her clapped hands and the two skeletons are blasted back
The two skeletons hit the sand below and crunch and die
A voice rings out from the statue:
A JAM HAS BEEN FOUND. REMOVE MANUALLY.
Why does it still say paper jam?!
More skeletons rise up.
Hettie looks over and launches another three scorching rays at the smaller skeles.
The first two go up in flames and crumble and the third one is on fire.
So far 5 littleuns are dead.
295 TO GO!
The robe wearing mummy dashes up the ladder behind Verusa.
The whip mummy following Elenora steps forward and an explosion of sand blasts out of his side as booming blade triggers
He swipes at Elenora and hits her for 6 bludegoning damage
Where the scrape is left the wound pulses black and she takes 9 more necrotic damage
Make a con save
NATURAL 20.
Aww yeah
Forge throws another javelin at the mummy tormenting Elenora and then heals her with healing word for 5 HP
Elenora slams her rapier into the chest of the mummified whip guy and he falls into dust
Diiroehn stabs more at some guys
Zell does dumb shit where she runs and stabs and jumps across the platform at the mummy and then jumps over to the rock jam and also gives that the stab without getting crushed by the machine
Verusa looks up at the mummy in front of her and then roars and explodes into her crystal bear forms
Man she’s so frigging cool
The statue voice rings out: APPLY ADDITIVES AND MIX THOROUGHLY
A gust of hot air launches towards Zell from the mummified dude
Cool thanks bro
Make a strength save
NATURAL 1.
Aw heck.
Advantage cause rage!
NATURAL 20!
She doesn’t get blown into the crushing rollers yay!
Elenora lines up her mage hand to drop the red powder she’s holding into the crystal dust
Aww yeah
Diiroehn gives some of the skeles some stabs and smites both of them and they drop dead
He runs towards Elenora’s platform and gets a stab in the back
Zell decides to do a dumb manourvre and parkours up the rolling crushing wheels of death
PARKOUR
Atheltics check!
19 + 6 + 2
Oh we good.
She throws some white dust into the crystal vats
Verusa looks over and bear lobs her box of green sulphur dust across the gap and stares down the last remaining skeleton on the platform
She charges it
NATURAL 20
The skeleton gets yeeted off into the sand and crumbles
Hettie watches the section where the heating elements are light up
The runes down the side of the platform glow and a cone of fire blasts across the crystals
Statue voice: INSUFFICIENT HEAT. INCREASE TEMPERATURE.
Hettie stands her ground and takes out her diamond and casts chromatic orb on the other flame vent.
The heat from her additional fire sets the crystals glowing evenly
Meanwhile on the sand, Diiroehn is having a bad time.
He’s feared. He’s getting stabbed.
He gets pretty badly hit from a mummified one
10 bludgeoning damage 13 necrotic damage
Con save?
NATURAL 20.
Oh thank fuck.
Elenora slides her rapier into the chest of the last skeleton in front of her and it turns to dust
NOICE.
Diiroehn feels the ground beneath him shudder
Something big is coming oh no
OH NO
Zell decides to jump down because hero landing ow
Oh hey a giant skeleton dude has popped up out of the ground
He’s fucking huge
Awesome
Cool
Alright
The heated crystal passes over the acid pit
Hettie launches a twin spell firebolt at the skeleton near Elenora
TIDES OF CHAOS.
D100 roll.
98.
Music bursts out from Hettie, booming and echoing across the chamber emanating from where she stands
Curious
There’s a choir or something as well harmonising
Neat.
Diiroehn is still feared
The mummified bro turns towards Zell and tries to fear her
NATURAL 20.
Mate you don’t even have skin
Though he claws her and that fucking hurts
4+10
Jesus ok the HP is starting to melt away
Forge takes a running jump off his platform and goes to do a frigging sick hero drop attack
NATURAL 20.
Holy fuck yes
He smites
It’s dope af
I’M THE JUGGERNAUT, BITCH
The mummified giant is not ok with this.
He slams his big old fist into Forge.
NATURAL 20.
Forge takes 40 damage.
He is unconscious.
The blast of sand from Forge’s body getting slammed into the ground can be seen up at the height of the platform from above
Zell and Diiroehn are both like.. Oh no.
Elenora sees this and she sprints towards the giant, completely focused on Forge’s body
Diiroehn sends his duplicate towards Elenora and Forge
Tenebrae who is a horse has been down here running some guys down tramples the remaining mummified fancy guy.
The giant takes steps towards Elenora and Diiroehn’s duplicate
It swings at his duplicate.
Elenora locks up in fear, paralyzed under the gaze of the mummified giant.
Fck me, not playing a healer is hard.
Zell gets up, grabs Diiroehn and bamfs them towards the bigun because Zell knows he can heal and they’re both kinda hurt now
Welp anyway sorry dude
Verusa-bear fucking charges through two more skeles that are advancing on the main entrance where our last horse is
Hettie fires another twinned spell chromatic orb at the giant and one of the last skeletons nearby
The bolt from her orb has a pink shimmery glow to it all of a sudden the room smells like roses.
Pink flames blast through the centre of the chest of the mummified giant and it falls to the ground in a huge crashing sound
Hettie is still playing music for some reason
I guess it’s pretty compelling
The remaining glass sheets roll down off the conveyor belt and fall into the warm sand begin to cool
Hettie twin firebolts the skeletons around her
They both go up in flames.
The flames change colours flicking between purples and blues and green?
TIDES OF CHAOS.
Anything flammable object that Hettie touches in the next 60 seconds bursts into flames
Cool!
She reaches out to the mummies beside her but doesn’t quite grab
Diiroehn reaches down to cast cure wounds on Forge for 10HP.
Nothing happens.
Oh cool.
Guess that’s what happened with that failed con save.
His neck is grey and starting to disintegrate slightly
Neither he nor Elenora can regain HP.
Neato.
Forge has passed two death saves at least.
Bearusa grabs the lever at the entrance and pulls it back into the off positions.
Forge is still on the ground making death saves.
Verusa sprints towards them and leaps off the platform in bear form
She slams into the ground.
Verusa shifts back into her own form as she lands and reaches out to Forge casting lesser restoration
Nothing happens.
Death save.
NATURAL 20.
His eyes flick open.
Elenora lifts the sleeve on her cardigan and shows the greying skin that seems to be turning to crystal and dust.
This is less than ideal.
Verusa and Zell head up the ladder to investigate the office at the end of the production line where they find records and invoices for the area.
Shipping/Teleportation notices for locations where glass is going.
Elenora heads up to the office immediately and takes note of every record she can find.
The Forge of Hours has only fairly recently been getting deliveries during the 5 year period that has been listed.
She hones in on the notifications for the Forge of Hours -
“Due to high security, all deliveries are to be sent to floating leaf fortress. The fortress is to be accessed by the Swift if needed. Due east of the city and south of Adaxus’ Furnace.”
----
Forge and Tenebrae haul the sheets of glass up the stairs and up to the cart at the top.
Hettie looks at the giant skeleton and investigates the crystals growing into the body
NATURAL 20 + 3 +4
Noice.
It looks like the dragon glass fragments have become fossilized into the bodies and once the energy from the forge activates it triggers the shards in them too.
Verusa extracts 100g worth of deep blue Khyber shards from the giant body
Forge heads up to where the fire staff was at the heating station and casts identify on it.
The staff can cast burning hands or scorching ray and there’s a thing it’s sitting on that allows magic items to cast automatically after a delay.
Elenora does a final sweep of the room with the records and finds a small set of drawers
Opening the first few few just yields metal trinkets
The final one holds a giant sized amulet with a faded white picture inside
The text inside reads “I will return to you”
It would fetch a good fee back at the university.
Time to head home
Verusa shifts into a sapphire draft horse with beautifully cut facets and assists the horses pulling the cart
Elenora has an awful nightmare of herself turning into bone and then shattering into pieces.
Oh lordy.
Both she and Forge lose 3 max HP.
So how the fuck are we getting them home?
Elenora: In case anything happens.. Could someone go back to my place and recover my notes there? The elven uprising didn’t happen quite how it was reported.. The notes need to be preserved.
Zellandria: I will, history is my passion.
YA GIRL IS TRAINED IN HISTORY.
Elenora and Diiroehn take the celestial steed and make their way fast off into the distance.
Elenora takes out her journal and starts furiously writing down everything.
Zell and Forge start walking leaving Verusa and Hettie with Mr Butterscotch to pull the cart.
After 15 or so hours of walking Zell curls up to sleep on Forge’s shoulders while he keeps marching
Forge and Elenora lose 6 more max HP
About 6 hours into the next day Elenora and Diiroehn pass where Forge had marched to during the night.
Elenora spends every waking moment writing.
Still walking.
The marshlands turns to grasslands.. We keep walking..
Forge and Elenora lose another 7 max HP.
Another day of walking.
Finally as night falls Forge and Zell spot smoke on the horizon
Heading to Cornelius’ infirmary we flag him down and show him the curse on Forge
He calls Ilalai to attend him.
Forge refuses to accept it until Elenora has been cured first.
An hour or so later Diiroehn and Elenora reach the outskirts of the town.
Elenora has 7 max HP remaining.
She keeps writing.
They get her to the infirmary.
Ilalai waits in the infirmary.
She slams a huge stone tablet onto the counter and points to some inscriptions.
Ilalai’s eyes flash green for a moment and light flows into Elenora and the grey crumbling flesh retracts and leaves her body
Cornelius drives several needles into her arm and heals her
Elenora brushes him off and gets up and tosses the notes she’s been writing on the journey into the fire.
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On the last few days of travel back, Hettie sees an immense dust cloud..
Larger than a bulette cloud.
An army.
Small fires can be seen kilometres away.
I guess the gnolls are pretty mad still, hey.
They hustle.
Hettie and Verusa make it back to town thankfully.
Far out.
We return with about 150kg worth of dragonshard glass.
There’s an army of gnolls about 4 days away.
Cool.
END SESSION.
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Report Date

01 Jan 2020