Session 04 - Assault on the Surge Disruptor

[avisarr]

Session 04 - Assault on the Surge Disruptor

The characters meet with the officials in the city of Myranor. Belisar, the Master of Arms, is the highest ranking official in the city and has taken charge. The characters deliver the Staff of Healing and find out all about what's been going on with the siege.

Then they ask about Kramtha, the spy who left his post at the Citadel. Belisar and his lieutenants lead the characters into another room and there the characters find Kramtha, lying on table, covered with a sheet. He had died a couple of nights before. An arrow to the chest, poisoned. He had held on to life for weeks in a feverish state, but with no magic to use, the healers could not save him. He died clutching a worn leather satchel.

After the initial shock wore off of a DM killing a favorite character, they composed themselves and opened up the satchel. Inside they found several mismatched papers and pages and a strangely shaped geometric cut stone.

The next night the characters had dinner with the city officials. The officials told them all about the siege. The wagon mounted devices outside were called Surge Disruptors. There were thirteen of them. Each was heavily guarded by a dozen guards and wizard. The wizard would stand next to the surge disruptor, with open spellbook, and chant endlessly.

The officials also told them of the siege armies assault tactics. Several times each week, the Black Sorcerers would open up a short range teleport bubble. A unit of orcish soldiers would march into this bubble and come out of an identical bubble that had formed inside Myranor some where. These sneak attacks enabled them to dump a unit of soldiers anywhere in the city with no warning. Of course, the city of Myranor had no functioning magic and so could not predict or prevent these teleport bubbles from forming. They had only one defense. They did have several drellisite crystals. A naturally occurring radiant crystal that destroys spells. The Myranor wizard's guild had several pieces of the crystal and gladly handed them over to the city officials to aid the city during its time of need. A few pieces of this valuable crystal were not enough to affect the siege. But a single crystal could collapse a teleport bubble. Each crystal was given to a fast running page. These pages continuously roamed the inner city. If a teleport bubble was seen forming, the alarm was sounded and the crystal carrying pages would come running. Of course, they weren't fast enough to prevent a teleport bubble from opening. And usually one or two groups of Duthelm soldiers would come through. But the page usually showed up to collapse the bubble before a third group of soldiers could come through. This was the best they could do.

As if to demonstrate the point, a teleport bubble opened up in the next room and duthelm soldiers came charging through weapons drawn. Immediately, the characters were on their feet and meet the invaders with blades flashing. The city officials called for a drellisite crystal to be brought immediately.

Rothgar, normally an NPC, was being played by a guest that night. Rothgar ran into the next room and leapt through the teleport bubble. Instantly he emerged through the companion bubble out in the middle city, surrounded by orcs, ogres, humans and other nasties. The other characters, seeing Rothgar go through, followed him. Within a few seconds, the entire party (except for Katharana) found themselves in the middle city... a surge disruptor wagon only 150 yards away. Without hesitation, Rothgar charged the wagon and tackled the wizard. The other characters followed, fighting along the way. Before the wizard could recover, Rothgar put three arrows into his head. He then slung his bow, grabbed the spellbook and threw the dead wizard over his shoulder like a flour sack.

The characters fought bravely and battled their way back to the bubble. The odds looked hopeless. They were literally surrounded by the enemy. The only thing that kept them alive was SPEED! The battle took place at a full run. The characters, running and fighting, managed to get within 10 feet of the bubble. At that instant, the bubble collapsed. (Remember they had called for the crystal porter... well, he just showed up). Now the characters were in real trouble.

Without missing a beat, the characters changed course and ran for the river/moat. They leapt in with a dozen soldiers and one giant on their tail. They swam beneath the water's surface as arrows ripped into the river. They managed to make it to the far bank. Was I giving them the benefit of the doubt? Maybe. But this was all entertaining as hell. They faced a problem here however. They had their backs to a wall and faced pursuing soldiers and orcish archers. They called to the Myranor guards to lower a rope. But scaling a 100 foot wall would be suicide as they would make perfect targets for the archers. The wizard myranor brother unleashed a fireball spell against their pursuers. The spell was scrambled by the surge disruptors and the energy of the fireball was altered into a randomly targeted disintegration effect. The dice were rolled. Luck was with them. The disintegration spell hit the wall behind them and put a 15 foot hole in the wall. The characters scrambled in and, with the help of the Myranor guards, began barricading the hole.

Success! By using the teleport bubble against their enemy, they had managed a sneak attack of their own and through sheer bravado, had managed to kill a wizard and steal the spellbook used in conjunction with these strange "Surge Disruptor" devices. Perhaps a way could be found to combat them!