The Crystal Dominion - Session 20 Summary

[avisarr]

The Crystal Dominion - Session 20 Summary

The Heroes:

RedEye - A sayune darkwalker with rogue skills and a few spells of sorcery.
Eiran - An elven ranger and archer with a gift for communicating with animals.
Sir Tristan - A knight in shining armor, man of honor and courage, and a skilled swordsman.
Alan - A human arcanologist... a magic tinkerer with a keen ability to "reprogram" spells and magic items.
Rikhaal – A human priest of Barrinor with an array of spells and powerful healing magic.

NPC Characters:

Koeglur – An ogre warrior, former slave, rescued by the party. Now serves the party.
Osh – A 12 year old human male serving as a squire to Sir Tristan.


The Story:

At the end of the last session, the party had finished exploring the first level, the "dock level" of the dungeon and had just defeated a heavy war golem by disabling it with the drellisite (anti-magic) crystal.

Alan, their arcanologist, wanted to study the automaton and add it to all of the other things he was studying in this place. He managed to disassemble enough of the internal clockwork gears that it would be disabled and only then took the drellisite crystal away from the downed mech.

Having learned all he could from the workshops and this automaton, he was finally ready to move on.

The party went through the last set of double doors which slide open to reveal a small 10x15 foot room. There was a skeletonized corpse on the floor and a single lever on the wall which had two glyphs. Raluvin, the butler golem that was still accompanying them, deciphered the glyphs. One said "Dock Level" and the said "Fort Level". Although none of them had ever encountered an elevator, it took Alan only a few moments to discern the functioning of this device.

The party all gathered within the small chamber and pulled the lever. The doors slide shut and the floor (platform) began to descend. There was the definite sound of clicking gears and metallic machinery. As the platform descended, all of the party members capable of magic (Alan, Rikhaal and Redeye) all began to suffer physical illness. Their heads began to ache and buzz. Their vision blurred. Their stomachs churned and they felt weak. The illness intensified from mild to severe quickly as the platform descended.

The platform slowed, then stopped. The doors slide open and suddenly all three felt a wave of nausea wash over them. Alan collapsed entirely. As soon as the doors were open, several things happened at once. Something small leapt into the elevator and attacked Koeglur. Long metallic legs wrapped around his head and a long tail whipped wildly about.

At the same time, a lightning bolt flashed into the elevator, striking Osh in the chest. He went down with a smoking blackened chest plate.

The party saw several small metallic automatons sprinting toward the elevator. These were different from any they had seen before. They ran swiftly on six legs and had long tails. In place of the head, they had a single faceted crystal set in a metal bracket. The crystal piece moved like a single eye. These things were fast and seemed to be structured half way between a spider and a monkey. The party quickly dubbed them "spider monkeys".

Alan ordered Raluvin to take the elevator back to the upper level. Raluvin grabbed the lever and moved it to the up position, but as he did, he explained that the elevator would take a few moments before it would cycle and close the doors and begin moving again.

Eiran tossed one of his few remaining grenades (the alchemical grenades that Alan had manufactured many sessions ago) at the advancing spider monkeys. They all leapt to avoid the explosion, but it did slow them down and damaged two.

Rikhaal cast a spell but his magic fizzled, the energy of the spell wasted.

Alan, despite being mostly incapacitated, noticed that his drellisite crystal had shattered and that the bones of Mazuris were reacting strangely to this environment.

Tristan saw one of the spider monkeys hanging from the ceiling just outside the elevator. It was from this direction that the lightning bolt had come. Tristan jumped out of the elevator and swung at it. He connected and destroyed it with one strike.

The four creatures reached the elevator quickly and each began firing lightning bolts in at the tightly packed party. RedEye fled the elevator to do battle with them. Rikhaal also stepped out and, having no magic, began swiping with his hammer.

At this point, the elevator finally completed whatever cycle it was doing or recharged or whatever it needed to do. The doors slide shut and the platform began to rise back to the upper level.

Koeglur, Alan, Raluvin, Osh and Eiran were still in the elevator. Koeglur was still grappling with a spider monkey that had attached to his face and was stabbing him with the long tail. Eiran and Raluvin both helped Koeglur pull the wildly flailing creature off of him. Between the three of them, they managed to beat it to pieces.

Meanwhile, down below on the lower level, the others managed to defeat the other spider monkeys. Although the spider monkies were blindingly fast, they were, fortunately, not very tough.

The party regrouped on the upper level. Alan took some time to study what had happened to their magic. He analyzed the bones of Mazuris, their magic items and the remains of the drellisite crystal. After some time he figured out what was going on.

The mine below, due to the geological resource that was harvested here, was generating an incredible amount of magical energy. That energy was interfering with the normal flow of magic. Like trying to blow a smoke ring in a fierce wind, spells and magical effects were simply being overwhelmed and ripped apart by the fierce torrent of magical energy.

The spider monkeys were automatons. Clearly, they were magical constructs. They were operating fine in the environment below and were able to generate magical bolts of lightning. So there must be a way to adapt items.

Similar to adjusting the frequency, the spells and items of the party had to be adjusted and adapted to the magical energy field below. Once Alan had that figured out, it was just a matter of time. It took the party several hours to "retool" all of their spells and items, but it was time well spent.

Only after they had completed adapting all of their magic did they feel ready to continue on exploring the rest of the lower level.

On the lower level, they took some time to explore the chamber immediately outside the elevator – this was the room where the "spider monkeys" had attacked. The room was some sort of entry hall or parlor. It was filled with statues, artwork, tapestries and stone benches. Most of the artwork and tapestries were faded. The chamber was dimly illuminated in by glowing crystals set in the ceiling.

There was only one exit from this chamber. They followed it, went down some stairs and entered a small chamber. Most likely a guard room. There were three exits. The party was entering the chamber from the north. Corridors left this small chamber to the east, west and south.

In this small guard chamber was a table and chairs and two skeletonized corpses. On the table was an unfinished card game and a few ancient coins. The party took the coins – these were Traxxian and coins like these had not been made in almost two millennia. They might be valuable to a collector.

They decided to follow the east corridor. It ended in double doors which were open. Beyond the double doors was a huge hall filled with stuffed game animals and more artwork. The party noticed a faint line and set of glyphs traced in the stone at the threshold of the door. The party assumed this was some type of trap and, fearing to venture further, went back to the guard room to try a different direction.

This time they followed the west corridor, smelling the familiar scent of musty parchment. The corridor ended in a some kind of office. Besides a table and chairs, there were several book cases and many books and scrolls. Dominating the north wall was a huge map drawn on yellowed parchment.

As they gazed at the map they realized two things – first, it was a depiction of the mountain that they had climbed and entered. Second, the map was changing before their very eyes. Small dots and glyphs were moving slowly across the map. They touched one small grouping of glyphs. Suddenly a larger sketch, showing a brown bear, appeared. Traxxian glyphs appeared next to the image. The party quickly deduced that this magical map was showing them everyone and every thing that was on the mountain. They could see the strange crystalline creatures that had attacked them. They could see all manner of beasts and birds. They could even see their own group of men – the guild soldiers that were camped outside the hidden gate at the mountain top. Alan realized that this must have been so that they could ensure that no one was on the mountain or even nearby whenever they wished to open up the mountain top and send a crystal laden caravan on its way.

Further experimentation by touching other glyphs on the map allowed them to show the dock level of the dungeon above. They could also see the fort level where they were now. The map even showed them, a small cluster of dots, huddled in one room near the elevator, gazing at the north wall.

Fascinated by this map, the party used it to explore the rest of the fort level, this level that they were about to venture through. Raluvin, the automaton, was able to read the Traxxian to them and decode the strange glyphs that appeared.

After some time they had studied the whole of this level. There were few creatures on this level. There was a temple nearby with four undead creatures. There was a prison chamber filled with undead. And there was a heavy war golem patrolling the halls.

The map also showed them the locations of traps and magic items. This proved particularly useful and they worked to commit the map to memory.

Several glyphs on the map did not function and there were, apparently, functions of this magical map that the group could not access.

Alan elected to stay behind in this conference room to continue studying and reading. Raluvin was able to translate for him (and also teach him the language). Koeglur stayed behind to protect them both.

The rest of the party ventured forth. Rikhaal urged the party to visit the temple first. He was eager to dispatch the undead there.

The party followed their map to a large chamber which was labeled "Main Temple" (on their map). Behind huge and ornate doors opened to reveal a massive temple of onyx and gold, marble and satinstone. The far wall was dominated by a tremendous statue depicting a four armed warrior god, helmed and arrayed in armor and weapons.

Laying on the floor where four skeletal corpses dressed in decorative robes. The priests of this long dead temple, no doubt. As the party walked into the temple, these four ghastly things rose to their feet and attacked. Two of them drew weapons and charged. One retreated to the steps of the statue and began casting a spell.

The fourth undead ran to the organ and began to play. As the dreary notes chimed out, the atmosphere thickened around the heroes. Almost as if the dank air and the darkness became palpable things, the heroes could feel a great weight crushing down on them, physically, mentally and emotionally. Still, they fought on...

Rikhaal drew forth his most potent magicks and called upon Barrinor to smite down the undead. Blinding light shot forth from his and all four undead were turned to dust.

A quick search of the temple revealed nothing of interest. The place stank of foul magic and corruption and most of the heroes wanted to leave it quickly.

Outside the temple doors, back in the corridor, the encountered another one of the heavy war golems. The thing fired its grappling hook chain at Osh, which pierced him through the belly. The mechanical monstrosity began reeling the young squire in like a fish. The entire group leapt into battle with the golem. RedEye again used the trick of phasing the foot of the golem into the floor. It had worked before. It was taxing for him and exhausting to use his magic in such a way. But it was worth it. With one foot buried in the floor, the golem had much less mobility. Very soon the group had beaten it into junk (though it took a considerable amount of damage before it finally "died"). Osh was terribly wounded, but Rikhaal was quick to heal him and the others.

The group spent some time searching through several adjacent rooms. They found a large bath room, storage rooms, servants quarters and that sort of thing. They also found a large kitchen with several unusual magic items in it – a self stirring spoon, a self heating cauldron, a magical box stuffed with food which was still fresh. In one corner of the kitchen was an alcove, completely empty, with a slightly acrid smell. It was magical. Alan studied it and probed the magical aura. It could not tell if it was a disintegration booth or perhaps a teleportation booth. They tossed a spoon in and the spoon vanished in a fiery flash and a wisp of smoke. The test was inconclusive. Teleportation or disintegration... it could be either one. The party moved on.

The party next came across a large prison complex. From the magical map in the library, they knew that a hoard of undead creatures were within. The party decided to avoid a melee. Instead, they threw open the doors and tossed in a couple of fire balls. As soon as the flames died down, Rikhaal turned the remaining undead. Other than charred bones, there was nothing of interest in the prison.

Finally, the party came to a room that Raluvin, the butler golem, said was the treasure room. There was a short corridor leading to the treasure room and a heavy iron door. To avoid any possible traps, it was decided that RedEye would use his magic to phase through the wall into the treasure room, grab anything magical and phase back out. The wall was much thicker than anticipated and made from a rather dense stone. It took RedEye much of his magical power to get into the room.

It was clear that this treasure room had already been robbed. At one time it must have held a vast treasure, but now, most of that treasure was gone. It looked as if it had been cleared out in a great hurry... tables were overturned, coins lay scattered about the floor and pieces of sculpture and pottery lay smashed on the floor. Not all the treasure was gone. Whoever had robbed this chamber had done so haphazardly or else they had simply run out of time.

RedEye searched through the wreckage for anything valuable... he gathered up a number of coins. He used his powers to sense enchanted items and he did find a few magical pieces. He quickly gathered them up and phased back through the wall. In the corridor, the party reviewed what magic items he had retrieved.

The pile included a bedspread, a bucket, a single potion of healing, a cloak, a necklace, a sword sheath, a silver chest, a ring, a pair of satin gloves, three scrolls and a hammer.

We ended the session here with the party drooling over their booty. At the start of next session, Alan, the arconologist, will identify all of the items.