Session 32 – Rescuing Saramuthak
Journey to the Town of Soleth
The party left the town of Hansuse and travelled north on the main road to the town of Soleth. Their plan was to free Saramuthak from the prison where Lesoth said he had been imprisoned. From all indications, Saramuthak had simply been wholed up in a cell and forgotten. Ugita felt that even if they only recovered his body, they might be able to resurrect him. The road began to parallel the coast. In the distance, the party could see the town of Soleth and beyond it, the Wall. It was immense. It was the first time the characters had seen the Wall. They saw it stretch from horizon to horizon.
Entering the Town of Soleth
City gates were guarded. The party noticed that the guards here were very heavily armed, and appeard to be elite professionals. They looked very experienced. Most of them bore several scars.
The Town
The Town of Soleth is large, clean, organized and well run. The party noticed several small buildings with huge chimneys. Stacks of coal and firewood were stacked outside. Also, hundreds of pounds of rubble sat in great piles. Thousands of bricks, neatly stacked and arranged, sat around. Wagons were loaded with finished bricks. Smoke poured out of every chimney.
The Prison Exterior
The heart of this town is the Garrison. It is the military headquarters for the entire region and the Wall. This massive building is five stories tall and 300 rooms. It houses about 1,200 soldiers year around and about 4,000 during Horde season. The building is heavily fortified and every entrance can be sealed with iron plating. (Designed to withstand a Horde attack).
The Rescue
They used Windwalk to get up on the roof of the large garrison and then used a passwall spell through the ceiling to get in. Used invisibility and cloudwalk to travel through the fort. With these spells, they easily snuck past the guards. Once they made it to the deepest level of the dungeon, they found a number of high security cells. They began freeing prisoners one by one. The first was a big deformed humanoid in an iron mask who was, apparently, mute. The second was a saridian language expert and scholar named Sarthid.
They found several storage rooms including an explosives room (Chaddamar has developed very crude rocket technology and has a combustible powder propellant similar to gun powder). In the explosives storage room they found several large casks of the powder along with several dragonmaw cannons (shoulder fired, one use rockets).
Rothgar and Callister each took 2 dragonmaw cannons.
They alerted the guards accidentaly by making too much noise. A dozen guards came crashing down the stairs. Rothgar fired one dragonmaw cannon and set himself on fire accidentally (because the party wasn't aware of the protective clothing needed to fire the weapon properly). The first group of guards was defeated, but the party could hear more coming. They interrogated one of the injured guards from the first group and learned from him which cell was Saramuthak's.
Saramuthak
They used a variety of spells to punch a hole through the wall. Inside they found an old, musty chamber. They quickly searched the cell and found a stassis sphere (exactly like the same small magical glass sphere in which they had found Grimnoth). They quickly discovered that Saramuthak must have had a stasis sphere with him and placed HIMSELF in the sphere in order to survive. (Time stands still in the sphere and he could survive indefinitely without food and water.
The party escaped using a passwall just as the second wave of guards arrived. They windwalked out through the chimney. Sarthid and Torg were placed in the stasis sphere that Saramuthak had just emerged from (so that they could also be rescued and easily transported outside of the prison).